


enemies-to-lovers

by the-reylo-void (Anysia)



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad Decisions, Belligerent Sexual Tension, Characters Reading Fanfiction, Characters Writing Fanfiction, Dark Rey (Star Wars), Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fandom Allusions & Cliches & References, Fic within a Fic, I Blame Tumblr, Metafiction, Modern Era, Online Romance, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Redemption, Rey Needs A Hug, Satire, The Author Regrets Nothing, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:54:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 59,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22316659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anysia/pseuds/the-reylo-void
Summary: Six months ago, the popular space opera Lost Galaxy did the unthinkable: it made the controversial enemy-soldier ship MattKira canon. That would be bad enough on its own, but then anti blogger Rey finds a MattKira fanfiction reblogged onto her dashboard. Her solution? Start hate-reading it and posting a running commentary on just how bad it is.One problem.The fic is actually pretty good.And then the author, KyloRen, sends her a message...
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 1902
Kudos: 2845
Collections: Ijustfellintothissendhelp





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Italiano available: [Da nemici ad amanti (enemies-to-lovers, traduzione)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23529952) by [VesperLucifer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VesperLucifer/pseuds/VesperLucifer)



> [2/19/20: Well, the cat's out of the bag and my identity has been revealed. I hope you had fun and enjoyed the fic!]
> 
> You know what I'm doing. So do I. Cheers, Reylos.
> 
> (This fic will be updated on Tuesdays and Fridays until it's finished. I may or may not reveal my identity at the end. In the meantime, this is fun af.)

_people on this hell site defending matt logan?? in this economy???_

32,846.

_why ship matt with kira when you could do literally anything else_

17,259.

_imagine hating kira so much that you want to see her in a relationship with her abuser_

22,304.

_lmao i cannot fucking believe we’re in 2020 and people are still shipping matt/kira, he literally tried to kill her, can we please stop romanticising abuse and acting like this shit is even close to okay_

88,755 and climbing.

Rey pursed her lips in irritation as she scrolled down her Tumblr dashboard on her phone. It was cold comfort, seeing some of her most popular posts reblogged and sandwiched between GIFsets of the season finale of _Lost Galaxy._ Some of them were innocuous enough, slick graphics of the final climactic planetside battle, loving close-ups of Kira’s smiles throughout the season, sexually-charged moments between “we swear they’re just good friends, guys being pals, who doesn’t love a good totally platonic bromance?” Sam and Nines.

But there was also _that moment_ , the betrayal of everything that _Lost Galaxy_ stood for, rendered over and over in GIFsets and edits and far too many smug, self-satisfied reaction images from _those_ people. 

Because somehow, against all the laws of God and the universe and basic common sense... the fierce warrior of justice, Kira, had kissed Matt, the son and right-hand man of the emperor of darkness.

It wasn’t a quick kiss. It wasn’t a “distract the villain” kiss. It was a “we’re going to pretend that Matt hasn’t led an evil army into battle and threatened Kira’s friends and been an all-around asshole until this episode” kiss. A long, steamy, “what the fuck am I watching, how did this happen” kiss. A “holy fuck they did it, they made MattKira canon, this is indeed the worst timeline” kiss.

The episode hadn’t been online for an hour before the GIFsets came out, and with it a spike in the Discourse. 

And thereyoflight was right there in the middle of it, as always. 

Rey ducked her face into her scarf against the wave of cold air that always seemed to hit the back of the bus. Her fingerless gloves were nearly worn through, the knitting over the palms warped and uneven as she tried to eke another year out of her wardrobe in between underpaid shifts at the coffee shop. There was a long, horizontal crack through the screen of her phone, but it was a newer model, and she’d paid for the thing herself, so fuck it. 

Her thumb was cold against the screen as she scrolled through the notes on her posts. Six months past the end of the season, as _Lost Galaxy_ entered an extended hiatus, and the debate about Matt and Kira was as fierce as ever. 

She hadn’t meant to make thereyoflight an anti-MattKira blog, and really, it wasn’t. She loved the show. She loved Kira and Sam and Nines. She had even almost liked Matt, when he was being his cocky, villainous self and getting his ass kicked by Kira. 

But then there had been the Fated storyline, some convoluted rubbish about soulmate marks and destiny, and before Rey knew it the fandom was clogged with MattKira shippers. Like they weren’t on opposite sides of the galactic war, like they hadn’t straight-up stabbed each other in Season Two, like they didn’t spend all of their time together yelling and fighting and just generally acting like they wanted the other person dead.

(And yes, fine, there was that weird implication last season that _maybe_ they’d fucked when they’d been trapped in the Forest of Waking Solace together and they’d encountered that weird sex pollen, but the shippers were really gross about it considering all the show had done was hint at it and even the showrunners said it was “up to your interpretation”. It wasn’t like it was canon, okay.)

It had started small, just a few snide comments and posts about Matt being an asshole (which he was, even if the actor who played him had that tall, dark, and smoldering thing going for him). An observation or two celebrating Kira handing him his ass in the latest episode. And before long, disbelief that anyone would ever think the two of them could be a romantic pair. 

It was the last category that got her noticed. Before MattKira, Rey’s most popular post had been a half-drunk paean to pizza bagels that ended up with 43 notes. 

Her first invective against the ship netted upwards of 16,000. She gained 800 followers overnight, and the number kept rising. 

Rey reached up and tugged the cord to request a stop as her apartment complex came into view, and she slotted her phone into her coat pocket. There was a thin layer of old, gray snow crisping the grass along the sidewalk, and her resoled boots slipped as she exited the bus with a quick thanks to the driver. 

It wasn’t like she didn’t have her own reasons to hate Matt and Kira together, she thought, readjusting her backpack over her shoulders. After all, Matt may have been the son of the greatest evil in the galaxy, but he’d been raised by loving foster parents and cared for before he’d fallen to the darkness. He’d had _choices._

Whereas Rey, for her part, had aged out of her last foster home seven years ago and hadn’t looked back. 

She was like Kira, in that respect. Kira, who’d been an orphan in a backwater farming colony before the Council had identified her as something special in her late teens and trained her to fight evil across the galaxy. Kira had learned to fight with a laser sword and take out bad guys, Rey had worked three jobs to put herself through the local junior college, including bartending at that one dive where she’d had to dodge and weave to keep Unkar Plutt’s fat, greasy hands off her. 

And then there was everything with Ben, and...

Rey tightened her jaw and retrieved her keys from her pocket. No. Not thinking about it anymore. It was ancient history at this point.

Anyway, the point was she had her own reasons to hate Matt, and to not want him anywhere near Kira. 

And it wasn’t like she was alone in that sentiment. Every anti-MattKira post she made got thousands of notes. Even people who didn’t watch the show sent her messages applauding her for saying that it was toxic and wrong. She’d gone from a tiny blog with 80 followers to one of the biggest names in the fandom with thousands. Her opinion mattered. _She_ mattered. 

It was almost enough, sometimes, when the nights were quiet and empty and the memories got too close. 

*****

_Staying at Poe’s tonight (WINK). There’s curry in the fridge. Please please leave me some, it’s the good stuff from Bombay Kitchen. Love you!_

Rey sighed and dropped her backpack on top of Finn’s note. At this point he spent so much time at his boyfriend’s it was a wonder they didn’t just take the plunge and move in together. But Finn was gun-shy, still coming to terms with his first “real” relationship that had messy feelings and hand-holding and that one mortifying day that Rey had come home to find him giving enthusiastic head to Poe in the living room. 

But Poe was patient, and they were good for each other, and it gave Rey enough space in the apartment to have regular self-care nights without Finn making fun of her face masks, so that was something. Rey toed off her boots and flopped onto the sofa, grabbing the TV remote and tossing on a re-run of _Friends_ as she retrieved her laptop. 

This was the best part of the day, coming home from work and spending a few hours browsing Tumblr, occasionally finding a good fight. There were always a few MattKira shippers who would try to start them in the tags, or the occasional eyeroll-inducing call for peace and harmony, like they weren’t the ones idolising an abusive dynamic and acting like they were the victims somehow. It took the edge off to loose some venom on them, when her paycheck had to stretch further and further, when the nights were even lonelier, when another holiday without a family loomed on the horizon. 

There was almost a twisted sense of community to it, and Rey absently queued up a few recent anti-MattKira posts from her longest-standing mutuals. They had a robust Discord chat going, and a few of the bigger users were freelance entertainment writers who had written thinkpieces about the damage ships like MattKira could cause. There was even one girl who claimed she was a doctoral candidate writing her dissertation on abusive ships, but then someone had found out she was actually sixteen and had made up a weird story about how she personally knew Matt’s actor and had met him on a tour at a local museum, so who even knew what the deal was with...

Rey stopped scrolling through her dashboard as a sleek-looking moodboard appeared, anchored by an image of Matt and Kira locked in the infamous (and passionate) kiss from the last episode. There was an AO3 link and a short blurb beneath it: 

**_ACROSS THE STARS._ ** _After the final battle, Kira is haunted by her last moments with Matt. When she receives an anonymous message inviting her to a meeting on the forest moon, deep down she knows it’s her destiny to follow. [post-canon, rated E, ongoing]_

Someone. 

Was putting. 

_MattKira fanfiction_ on her dashboard. 

Rey scrolled up, eyebrows rising as she read the URL and opened her messages. She and roseofthegalaxy had been mutuals for over a year, and she’d never seen the girl breathe a positive word about MattKira. She didn’t have quite as much antipathy for Matt as the rest of them, but…

> _**thereyoflight:** Hey Rose, just checking but I think you may have gotten hacked? Someone reblogged a MattKira fic to your blog, yikes _

A response from Rose appeared less than a minute later:

> _**roseofthegalaxy:** oh no that was me! i’m totally obsessed. <3 _
> 
> _**thereyoflight:** You’re reading MattKira fic??? seriously???? _
> 
> _**roseofthegalaxy:** girl it’s SO good. i think even you might like it _
> 
> _**thereyoflight:** You have got to be kidding me. please tell me you’re kidding me _
> 
> _**roseofthegalaxy:** look the writing is REALLY good and it’s all about matt turning good and trying to figure out how to fight with the good guys and trying to get kira to forgive him _
> 
> _**thereyoflight:** He fucking stabbed her rose omg _
> 
> _**roseofthegalaxy:** yeah but it was during a battle and that gets addressed anyway (and come on she stabbed him too) and they try to figure out the whole soulmate thing considering everything they’ve been through and done to each other and it’s just so so good _

Rey pressed her thumbs to her eyes, groaning softly to herself. Rose was a sweet girl who posted some gorgeous fanart, but this was a mutual-breaking offense. 

> _**thereyoflight:** I think i’m gonna have to unfollow, ngl. if you’re shipping that now _
> 
> _**roseofthegalaxy:** :( i understand. _

Rey grimaced. She _understood?_ Did she even know what she’d done wrong? 

> _**thereyoflight:** Are you sure this is what you want to do? you know what those people are like. they’re fucking fetishising abuse _
> 
> _**roseofthegalaxy:** i mean… i get why you feel that way, and i don’t think i ship it, exactly. i just like the story _

The living room fell quiet as Netflix demanded to know if Rey was still there, but she was oblivious to everything except her laptop screen and the strange sense of desperation falling over her. 

> _**thereyoflight:** but you know it’s bad, right? like you know it’s abusive and misogynistic and that matt doesn’t deserve to be in the same time zone as kira _
> 
> _**roseofthegalaxy:** maybe not if it were real, but in the story… i’m serious, why don’t you read it? it might change your mind _

Rey made a face as she opened the story in a new tab, rolling her eyes at the Explicit rating and the litany of tags. 

> _**thereyoflight:** this thing has TWENTY THREE chapters omfg. how long have you been reading it?? _
> 
> _**roseofthegalaxy:** four months, maybe? i started when it was on chapter 3 but it didn’t really get interesting until 7 or so. everybody’s reading it _

She wasn’t kidding. 4500 kudos. The MattKira shippers were something fucking else, that was for sure. 

> _**roseofthegalaxy:** the writer’s actually a guy, which is bizarre because it’s all fem-gaze and the sex scenes are hot lmao can you imagine _
> 
> _**thereyoflight:** Some misogynistic dudebro writing mattkira rapefic?? uh yeah i can imagine _
> 
> _**roseofthegalaxy:** ffs rey its not rapefic. please PLEASE just read it and draw your own conclusions, ok? _

Rey rolled her eyes again as she began skimming the story, and a slow, devious smile spread across her face as she had an idea. 

> _**thereyoflight:** ...I’m gonna do just that >:) _

There was a new message notification, but she was already composing a new post in another tab. 

*****

Her scathing liveblog of the first chapter of “Across the Stars” had only garnered 6,000 notes, but an enthusiastic audience of anti-MattKiras and high levels of engagement. 

The second chapter had increased to 8,000, and her inbox was filled with encouraging messages and requests for a continuation. 

(roseofthegalaxy had unfollowed her after the first post. There was no message. Rey had tried to reach out to her but had jolted when she navigated to Rose’s blog and realized she’d been blocked at some point. Fine. Let her sympathise with the abuse lovers, then.)

_It’s coming later today!_ Rey wrote, eyeing the open tab where Chapter 3 lay waiting for her. _If you thought the last one was bad wait until you see Matt’s entrance in this one lmfao they just can’t help themselves with this dark fuck prince bullshit_

Rey leaned back, tapping her fingers against her laptop’s trackpad and chewing on her lower lip. She’d promised her take on Chapter 3 several days ago, but the write-up had been slow going. 

It wasn’t that the story was… bad, per se. In fact, as much as it pained her to say it, it was almost the opposite, at least writing-wise. The prose was solid and flowed well, the descriptions were lush, and Rey was surprised by how the writer’s characterisation of Kira seemed almost respectable.

For a MattKira shipper, anyway, she amended, opening the tab that housed the fic. She’d hate-read a few fics in her day, especially the kinky niche ones that got passed around on Discord and mocked to the ends of the earth, the ones where you could have pasted any characters onto the fucking and it wouldn’t have made a difference. 

This one, though… it almost seemed like a waste, that someone who seemed to be a pretty good writer would spend their time writing for such a trash ship.

“What’s your deal, KyloRen?” Rey mused aloud, right-clicking on the pseud. This was his only published work, and the author’s notes were sparse. There was a link to a Tumblr account in his profile, but it was a black-and-white aesthetic blog with no evidence of anything related to MattKira, or even _Lost Galaxy._ Nothing to sink her teeth into at all. 

The familiar “blip” of a message notification sounded, and Rey frowned as she clicked on the icon. 

> _**thekyloren:** “Dark fuck prince,” huh? Looking forward to seeing your interpretation of that. The write-ups of the first two chapters were hilarious. (In a good way, I promise.) _

Mother. Fucker. 

He’d _found_ her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double update to get you started and because this one's short. More coming Tuesday.

She could just block him. She blocked people all the time, it was like breathing at this point. And there was a note in her bio that clearly said “MATTKIRAS DON’T INTERACT,” so it wasn’t her fault if this asshole had zero reading comprehension. 

But, truth be told, it had been a long day at work and Finn was out again and it was getting close to _that_ anniversary so fuck it. 

> _**thereyoflight:** hi, I have no interest in talking to abuse fetishists about their weird rapefics okay _
> 
> _**thereyoflight:** go back to whatever subreddit you escaped from _

A response appeared almost immediately. 

> _**thekyloren:** To be fair, you’re the one who’s apparently reading my fic. I’m not really in the fandom, per se, but a few people messaged me about it. I hope you like it. _

Rey almost laughed in pure disbelief. 

> _**thereyoflight:** bro you’re writing stories about a ship that degrades women and glorifies abuse and i’m getting tons of notes from dragging your trash fic _
> 
> _**thekyloren:** Oh, I know. They’re actually pretty clever, your posts. Do you write? _

Why was he so fucking _calm?_ She’d gotten plenty of messages from people telling her they’d left nasty comments on the fic and sent him hatemail (which she’d told them not to do but when did fandom ever listen?), and he had to know she was the one who’d put them on his trail. And he was trying to, what, engage her in conversation?

Rey let out an annoyed huff and typed.

> _**thereyoflight:** it is none of your fucking business what I do _
> 
> _**thekyloren:** I was just curious because you have a good voice but I didn’t see any original content on your blog when I skimmed through it. A lot of anti stuff, though. I’m sorry. _

...sorry? 

> _**thereyoflight:** sorry for WHAT _
> 
> _**thekyloren:** For whatever’s hurting you. It’s everywhere. I’m sorry. _

This condescending motherfucker.

Rey breathed slowly and counted to ten, her fingers hovering over the keys. She was perfectly fucking fine, okay? Yeah, she was working two jobs, but she’d used to work three. And yeah, okay, maybe her friends weren’t around and maybe they had their own lives and didn’t really understand why she was lonely, but they were still there. And okay, fine, _maybe_ she’d wanted to draw at one point but had spent enough years being told that she wasn’t any good at art that she’d finally given up and…

> _**thereyoflight:** you’re an asshole, you know that? _
> 
> _**thekyloren:** For what it’s worth, I get it. I don’t have the best story, either. Most of it my own fault, but I know what it’s like. _
> 
> _**thereyoflight:** you know FUCK ALL about me and maybe if you weren’t a fucking abuse apologist you’d have had a better life but i guess we’ll never know huh _

She really, really should block him. He was doing that simpering bullshit that the worst shippers did, the “oh you must be so unhappy” and “why don’t you do something constructive” concern trolling that you knew damn well was just them trying to get a pass to ship their abusive ships and make excuses for it. At least some of the others had enough sense to know what they were doing was problematic and not flaunt it everywhere. 

Another message appeared.

> _**thekyloren:** I guess we won’t, no. Are you going to keep reading the fic? _

And there it was. So that’s what this was about. 

> _**thereyoflight:** lmao why, are you going to claim you’re the victim here and act like you’re being harassed or something? you posted it on AO3, it’s fair game. you deserve it _
> 
> _**thekyloren:** Oh, no, I really am just curious about the “dark fuck prince” thing. I’m not sure it’s accurate, but I’m interested to see your take on it. In Chapter 3 Matt comes in on his knees begging Kira to listen to him. They don’t even have sex until Chapter 7, and I mean, he cries through most of it. Spoiler alert, I guess. _
> 
> _**thereyoflight:** the last thing I want is to think of those two fucking you reprobate _
> 
> _**thekyloren:** Be careful with the tags, then. It’s plot-driven, not PWP, but there’s still a fair amount of sex. I figured that they’d probably revert back to that instead of _

The message ended abruptly, and Rey pursed her lips and waited.

> _**thekyloren:** Ah, sorry, I know you probably don’t care about plot decisions or anything like that. I would be curious to hear your insights, though. I have two chapters left to finish it off and I figure feedback from an anti would be an interesting data point. _
> 
> _**thereyoflight:** dude, I HATE YOUR SHIP _
> 
> _**thereyoflight:** i am MOCKING your fic _
> 
> _**thereyoflight:** why the fuck do you want to know what I think about your WRITING?? _
> 
> _**thekyloren:** I think I already explained that. Who better to identify the weak points of a story than someone who already hates it? It won’t be objective but at worst it’ll be entertaining. _
> 
> _**thereyoflight:** i am not here for your entertainment you asshole _
> 
> _**thereyoflight:** i should just block your ass _
> 
> _**thekyloren:** I feel like you would have done that already if you were going to, though. _
> 
> _**thereyoflight:** omg you might be the most annoying person in this fandom and that is saying a lot _
> 
> _**thekyloren:** I’ve been called a lot worse. _
> 
> _**thekyloren:** Speaking of which, your name isn’t Rey, is it? _

Rey froze, staring at her laptop screen with a cold chill down her back, and she hovered over the block button for a second before typing. 

> _**thereyoflight:** what the fuck kind of question is that? And no, it’s Isobel _

A coworker at the coffeeshop whose name had just popped into her head, but what the fuck, it’s not like it mattered. 

> _**thekyloren:** Just wondered about your URL. Ah, well. That was probably too much to hope for. _

What was he…

> _**thekyloren:** Anyway, you can call me Kylo if you like. _
> 
> _**thereyoflight:** Is that your name? _
> 
> _**thekyloren:** Ha. No. But I’d bet yours isn’t Isobel, either. _

Well, he had her there. But again…

> _**thereyoflight:** does it fucking matter? _
> 
> _**thekyloren:** Not particularly. But it’ll help to have names instead of just being like “hey you over there” when we talk. _
> 
> _**thereyoflight:** this is NOT going to be a regular thing, KYLO _
> 
> _**thereyoflight:** this is hard to convey via text but if you could imagine your name sounding really dumb out loud that’d be great _
> 
> _**thereyoflight:** because i’m sorry that is a dumb fucking edgelord name _
> 
> _**thekyloren:** It’s a D&D character I made up when I was twelve. _
> 
> _**thereyoflight:** LMFAO _
> 
> _**thereyoflight:** i knew you were some basement-dwelling neckbeard _
> 
> _**thekyloren:** Something like that. I turned post notifications on for you — that’s how I saw you’d just posted — but if you could shoot me a message when you get the next chapter take up, that’d be great. _

Rey blinked at the screen. Was he actually serious about this shit? 

> _**thekyloren:** And yes, I really am serious about this. _

Mother. Fucker. 

> _**thereyoflight:** how do I know you’re not going to send all of your followers after me to send me death threats and try to doxx me for being oh-so-mean to you or what the fuck ever _
> 
> _**thereyoflight:** MattKiras are fucking insane and everybody knows it _
> 
> _**thekyloren:** You can check my blog. I don’t really engage with anyone. I’m writing the story more for myself than anything. Also, to be honest, I’m not sure my 173 followers are going to be much danger to anyone. _
> 
> _**thereyoflight:** tell that to all of the actors you’ve harassed _
> 
> _**thekyloren:** Me personally? _

This fucking…

> _**thereyoflight:** NO, the MattKira Hive and everything they did to Cameron and his wife _
> 
> _**thekyloren:** Hive? Are they bees? _

Somewhere, in some damp, moldy basement in Bumfuck, Indiana or wherever, there was some 40-year-old neckbearded asshole laughing at her. 

> _**thereyoflight:** there is no way you’re this stupid _
> 
> _**thekyloren:** You’d be surprised. I have to get back to work. Please do let me know what you think. Have a good night, Isobel. _
> 
> _**thereyoflight:** oh, I’ll let you know all right _
> 
> _**thereyoflight:** in DETAIL _

No response. Rey frowned and shifted on the sofa. He’d still gotten the last word somehow, and she was still itching for a fight. 

Her eyes glanced up to the dog-eared wall calendar with Shiba Inu puppies that Poe had ostensibly bought for himself but had somehow ended up on Finn’s and her living room wall. Five more days. She could distract herself with a chapter a day — she’d probably need two to get through the one where they actually fucked, ugh — and have plenty of rubbish fanfiction to vent her frustrations on. 

Three years and it barely felt like a day. 

Rey shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts as she navigated back to AO3. 

Didn’t want to disappoint her audience, after all. 

Or the weirdo fic author who must have had one hell of a masochistic streak. 

“Chapter Three,” she muttered to herself, reopening the tab and starting to read.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well shit, this blew up. Hey. 
> 
> Couple of things: 
> 
> \- This fandom has the best sense of humour. Loving all of the comments. 
> 
> \- Yes, you might know me. The guesses have been very flattering and better than I deserve to be compared to. 
> 
> \- I've deliberately altered a few elements of my writing style to muddy the waters (more for any antis reading this than shippers). I still think some of you will figure it out, although at present no one is close. 
> 
> \- I'm writing without a beta due to the nature of this project - no one in the fandom knows I'm doing this - so yes I know the writing and chapter lengths are all over the place. 
> 
> \- I've been told that subscriptions to anonymous fics are wonky, so again: updates on Tuesdays and Fridays. No guarantees about the time of day because I enjoy chaos, but at some point on those days.
> 
> \- This fic is outlined at nine chapters and an epilogue. Should finish on Valentine's Day. I didn't plan that, though it's cool.
> 
> \- I will reveal my identity at the end. Taking all bets! 
> 
> \- (Skywalker. Reylo Skywalker.)

“Mother. _Fucker._ ” 

Rey crushed the empty pop can in her fist into a flat disk and slammed it down onto the coffee table. It had been a busy week at work as the nearby university began classes and an endless line of dead-eyed, sleep-deprived first-years filed into the coffee shop at all hours of the day. 

(There was an extra stab to seeing the art students hauling portfolios over their shoulders, red-cheeked from the cold and laughing. Rey had found herself spending her few idle moments scribbling sketches on napkins. She'd been good at it. Once.) 

The whole thing gave Rey enough pent-up frustration to make good time through the next few chapters of “Across the Stars”. It had only been a few days, but she’d already gained several hundred followers and a certain level of infamy for her readthroughs. The high-profile blogger tinmanforchancellorofskaro had even personally recommended them during her weekly MattKira Cringe Hour vlog, which reached dozens of viewers. 

The MattKiras were furious, of course, but it wasn’t like they didn’t make it worse by somehow acting like _they_ were the victims in this whole thing (even if part of Rey did feel a little bad for the more virulent hate messages a few of them were getting). There were a few cross-tagged posts calling for reconciliation, for the anti crowd to at least show some respect for the creative endeavors of shippers. 

Rey had already gotten multiple requests to do dramatic readings of those posts. They were just so earnest and oblivious that it was almost funny, they said. 

(She deleted those messages without answering them. That was a little far, even for her.)

But even without dramatic readings, Rey was a hero on Discord, and the recaps of the last few chapters had each topped 10,000 notes. There was a renewed swell of energy within the anti enclave, even after they’d retreated to lick their wounds in the wake of the season finale. 

There was only one small problem. 

Not with her. Not with the anti community or, well, even with MattKira.

It was the problem with “Across the Stars”. 

Namely, that it was _good._

Not even good in the sense that she could understand why MattKiras would be into it or even “good for fanfiction”. It was objectively, genuinely a good piece of fiction. It had been good before, even if she’d tried to brush it off as just being well-written from a technical standpoint. But the further she went, the more she could almost…

No. No, she still couldn’t understand liking that bullshit. It was gross and abusive and Matt was _still_ an asshole even if he and Kira had kissed that one time. 

This was all Kylo's fault for woobifying him. The season finale had ended on a cliffhanger, with Matt and Kira refusing to leave their respective sides of the war and thus forced to go their separate ways. But the longing look they'd shared in the final moments of the episode was a clear indication that they’d meet again, and there was always that whole soulmate mark thing to address in the next season. Kylo had mined that narrative thread and written Matt having a crisis of confidence and defecting from the army of darkness, turning to Kira as his only potential ally and sending her a message asking for help. 

Most MattKira fics would have had them fucking right away and Kira being some Magical Healing Vagina and forgiving him even though he’d killed hundreds of people and been a force of uncompromising evil for the last five years. At least, that was Rey’s impression from the handful of fics she’d read and seen passed around on Discord. 

Instead, Kylo’s Kira was the Furies unbound. Not only did she not jump into her erstwhile lover’s (ugh) arms, but she put him through hell the second she landed on the forest moon and found him. She didn’t accept Matt’s apologies. She didn't forgive him for not going with her when he'd had the chance. She handcuffed him to his ship and read him the riot act, along with a few choice swear words. 

And Matt just sat there and agreed without even trying to excuse himself. When he’d first appeared in Chapter Three, he had discarded his trademark black armour and half-mask. There were allusions to the young man he’d been before he’d fallen in the whites and greys he’d dressed himself in, and he’d apparently even shaved off that awful beard that Kira had spent so much of the last season throwing shade at (rightly, in Rey’s mind, what was Cameron thinking growing that goatee?).

Chapters Four and Five had seen Kira debating dragging him back to her friends in the alliance and letting them decide his fate, coupled with an absurd amount of tension and descriptions of Matt’s stupid dark eyes following Kira. She’d belted him across the face once when he’d stared too long, and Matt didn’t even defend himself then:

> _His lower lip had swollen dark-red, but his features were placid even as Kira’s shoulders shook and her fists clenched and unclenched at her sides._
> 
> _“I’m not going to fight you,” he said mildly. “I think we’ve both had enough of that.”_
> 
> _"Are you mocking me?"_
> 
> _He grinned. "Always."_
> 
> _Kira spat on the ground beside him. “I should kill you,” she seethed. “For Sam. For me. For betraying your birthright and walking away from everything you could have been. For leaving..._ _” She trailed off, her face crumpling._
> 
> _Matt reached for his collar and bared his neck. His eyes were dark, and he didn’t look away._
> 
> _“If it’s you, sweetheart," he murmured. "It's okay if it’s you.”_

Maybe Kylo just had a humiliation fetish. You never knew with guys in fandom. But it felt sincere, and there seemed to be a serious effort to hammer home not just what Matt had done in the context of the galactic war but what he had done to Kira herself. There had been the duel in the fire fields where they’d both stabbed each other and nearly died in the process. The time where Matt had personally tortured Sam for information. Even his steadfast refusal to join Kira for good at the end of that one episode where they’d been trapped together in the southlands and had been forced to work together to survive (the MattKiras still loved that one, for the same reason antis never rewatched it. There was a _lot_ of eyefucking). 

It was almost as if Kylo had anticipated all of the usual anti talking points as to why Matt was irredeemable and why he deserved to have Kira slice his head off before the series ended (Rey was still holding out hope for her to do it with his sword, ever since the episode where they wielded each other’s weapons and fought together and okay, if they weren’t such a gross and abusive ship that might have almost been hot). The writing didn’t try to excuse it or even explain it. It just _was_ , plain and ugly even in its ownership, and it seemed to confuse Kira as much as Rey herself reading it. 

> _“I don’t understand why you didn’t do this years ago, if you meant it. Your mother died to give you a chance to live, and in the end you went with your father anyway. With the emperor.” Kira cracked a dry branch in her hands and tossed it onto the fire._
> 
> _Her auburn hair shone gold in the firelight, and she could feel Matt’s gaze, unflinching, those dark eyes forever watching her. “You’re asking me to justify what I’ve done," he said. "I can’t. It wouldn't change anything even if I could.”_
> 
> _“You’re going to make it very hard to defend you, then.”_
> 
> _He smiled, the soft, real one that he'd so often hidden behind his mask. “Am I worth defending?” It was teasing, but there was a weight to the words._
> 
> _Kira’s eyes were very blue as she stared at him. One hand touched his freshly-shaven cheek, traced the jagged scar she’d scored into his skin during their duel in the fire fields._
> 
> _Matt’s hand caught hers. The thick red band along the inside of his wrist seemed to glow beside its twin on hers._
> 
> _“I'm not sure yet,” she said. She pulled her hand back and let it fall into her lap._

It was still MattKira trash. It was still romanticising a dynamic that had seen Kira in tears more often than not and Matt making one poor decision after another. 

But it was still a page-turner… or, well, screen-scroller, anyway, and before Rey knew it she found herself in the moment she dreaded.

It was time for Chapter Seven. 

And just to make her day complete, she had two unread message notifications. 

Kylo was the oddest wrinkle to this whole thing. Rey wasn’t nice to him. She openly criticised the fic and threw pointed insults at him about glorifying abuse. There was still no way that Matt could ever atone for all that he’d done, and no way that Kira could (or should) ever forgive him, and Kylo was the worst kind of delusional shipper if he thought otherwise.

And he just took in in good humour. He’d push back on her points if he felt strongly about some aspect of the writing, but he was mild-mannered, almost docile about her starkest critiques. If he noticed that her posts were becoming shorter, more terse, more frustrated, he didn’t say it, but he did cajole her into saying something positive after she’d posted her scathing takedown of Chapter Five and the Neverending Sexual Tension. 

(The extent of that positivity had been “you are too good a writer to be writing for a trash fire like MattKira”. But it was something.) 

Rey scrubbed a hand over her face and clicked on the message icon. She wasn’t in any great rush to get to the Great MattKira Fuckening that awaited her over on AO3, so she might as well see what Kylo was up to now. They'd spent a fair amount of time in conversation over the last few days. It wasn’t even always discussion about the fic, or anything about MattKira, or even _Lost Galaxy._ Sometimes he just liked to talk, from the looks of it, and Rey once again imagined him in a moldy basement somewhere, sad and alone. 

Not that she was one to judge, considering.

> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Hi, Isobel._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I just realised you’re up to Chapter 7 and I wanted to remind you that there is that sex scene coming up, so if it’s going to be triggering or upsetting, I understand if you’d prefer to bail. Or I can tell you which parts to skip if you’d still like to read it._

There were no noncon or dubcon tags on the fic, so it was probably okay, but still… it _was_ MattKira.

> **_thereyoflight: w_** _hy, is this where it gets rapey_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I have to hand it to you, you’ve got the myopic talking points down cold._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _asshole. This is serious_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Yeah, it’s really not._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _you think rape isn’t serious?? Wtf dude_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Rape and sexual assault are serious. Applying that framework to a story about two wizard-soldiers with magic powers makes me feel like I’m on drugs, and I’ve been clean for over a year now._

Well, that was new.

> **_thereyoflight:_** _i_ _could see needing to be on drugs to ship MattKira_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _:\_

Okay, maybe that was a little far. Two of Rey’s foster siblings had already disappeared onto the streets at the height of the opioid crisis, and she’d narrowly avoided falling into that trap herself when she was trying to cope after…

> **_thereyoflight:_** _sorry, that was in poor taste_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _are you okay now?_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Thank you. And yes, at least on that front._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _At any rate, there is no rape anywhere in the story. No noncon or dubcon or anything other than mutual consent and respect. I know it’s hard to believe, but Matt and Kira actually have feelings for each other._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _ugh, gross_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Thought you’d like that. Squeamish about feelings?_

A quick glance at the calendar. One more day. Less than. 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _n_ _one of your business. so is it a really disgusting sex scene or something even without the rapeyness_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_** _a_ _re there animal noises or oh god did you use the words “throbbing space cucumber”_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _fuck you’re a guy you probably wrote kira having like ten orgasms just from penetration and matt having a twelve inch dick_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I have had sex before, you know._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _that is exactly the type of thing a virgin incel would say_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Touché. But no, it’s a very emotional moment for both of them and is hopefully conveyed as such._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _are you one of the ones who thinks they fucked in the forest of waking solace?_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Honestly, yes. They were so awkward and tense afterwards. Like they’d fallen together and knew they couldn’t go back, even if it was a mistake there in that moment._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _yeah, been there_

The words were typed and sent before she could even think about them, and Rey groaned. 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _sorry, personal shit_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _tomorrow’s not a great day_

Shit, she was playing with fire now, but it was getting late and the loneliness was gnawing at her even more acutely than usual. 

Rey had thought about going back to therapy, once or twice. She’d had sessions with Maz Kanata for the better part of a year, talking about her abandonment issues and fear of commitment or whatever it was that made Maz sigh and look over her glasses at Rey. But then everything with Ben had happened, and she’d somehow slipped into just… surviving. 

Three years later and she was still somehow surviving. 

She wondered if Ben was.

Ugh, but Kylo didn’t need to hear this. Besides, for all she knew he was saving up whatever she told him as receipts to use as blackmail later. Better reset the board.

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _sorry, you may be an abuse apologist but you don’t deserve to have my shit heaped on you like this_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _It’s okay. Tomorrow’s actually not a great day for me, either._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i_ _think you’re lying but thanks_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _No, really._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _what, did someone close to you die or something_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _oh fuck that sounded a lot harsher than i meant it to_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _You’re fine. And yes, something like that._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _It was my fault, so it weighs on me. I think…_

He was hesitating, and Rey frowned at the screen. It remained static for several minutes, until a block of text appeared. 

> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I think that’s what I’m getting out of writing this story. Closure. Matt’s a bastard who’s done some awful things, but there’s still a chance for forgiveness and a chance for him to make things right. He can make the right choice. I lost that, by no one’s fault but my own. It helps to guide someone else to doing better. Even if he is a fictional character on some dumb TV show. Maybe someone reading it will have a wake-up call._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Fuck, you didn’t need all of that backstory. I’m sorry, Isobel._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _it’s okay, I think I actually get some of that_

There was a strange, bizarre intimacy to their conversations, even moreso here in this vulnerable moment where they both seemed to be so alone. 

Maybe…

Maybe she could tell him. 

Maybe he would listen.

But then, as she was typing:

> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I have to submit some pages to my editor so I’m logging off for the night. If I don’t talk to you, I hope tomorrow is as painless as possible._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Pay attention to Kira’s last line in Chapter 7 if you read it. I think it might speak to you._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Goodnight, Isobel._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _And… thank you._

Kylo never responded once he indicated he was done for the night, but Rey still stared at the message box. 

The man was an enigma. He shipped MattKira, a pairing that encapsulated everything wrong with current fandom culture. And it wasn't like he just passively shipped it; he was writing one of the most popular fics in the fandom, one that exaggerated the softness that the MattKiras always insisted was at the core of the ship even when the rest of the thinking world just saw the fighting. 

Yet he was thoughtful and well-spoken. He listened to her, indulged her even when she yelled at him. And he could write, if nothing else. 

Rey sighed and glanced at the clock. Ten p.m. Two more hours until it was officially tomorrow.

She might as well do some reading before then.

******

 _The forest moon is wrapped in a thick, humid haze as it rises high._ _She can feel the weight of dark, watchful eyes on her in the silvered throw of it, and she grips the hilt of her laser sword as she feels a light touch at her wrist._

_“It’s not enough,” she says in a choked voice even as she leans into his broad chest. “I still can’t forgive you.”_

_“I would never ask you to.” His voice is a dark rumble, and it’s been so long since she’s heard it that she nearly cries. “Just let me be with you.”_

_“I can’t.”_

_“This isn’t what I wanted for you.” It’s as close to an apology as she could ever imagine from him. She lets him fold her into his arms and lean down to kiss her._

_She can’t remember what his kiss feels like anymore, and that hurts more than anything._

_The air is cool against her skin as she’s suddenly naked, and he is, too, and it doesn’t even register as anything unusual. It just is, it's **right** , and before she knows it she’s astride his lap, arching her spine and taking him deeper, tangling her hands in his dark hair and pressing her cheek to his. _

_“I want to hate you,” she breathes against his skin. “I’m trying to.”_

_“You’re hating everyone else instead.” He rolls a smooth thrust up into her. One arm is wrapped around her shoulders, and he dips her back to kiss the hollow of her throat. “It’s not their fault. You're hurting them.”_

_“You hurt me.” She’s crying, fat tears rolling down her cheeks, but she doesn’t let him pull away or pull out when he tries. “This should be real.”_

_His face is flickering back and forth like pages in a flipbook, Matt Ben Ben Matt_ **_Ben…_ **

_“Kira.”_

_That’s not her name._

_“Your name isn’t Rey is it?”_

_Is it?_

_Rey wraps her legs around his waist and drags him down so he’s flat on his back. His skin is pale in the hazy moonlight, and Rey rides him with her jaw tight, her hands braced against his chest and fingertips digging into his pectorals._

_“I don’t deserve this,” he says, and it’s Kylo’s words in Matt’s mouth but it’s Ben speaking them._

_“It’s not a matter of deserving,” she says,_ **_Kira_ ** _says from another world, stark lines from the end of a fairytale. “It’s about making things right.”_

_She comes on a strangled cry, her back arching and his hands tight on her hips, and he lets her slump against him afterwards._

_“I’m trying,” she hears him say._

_*****_

When Rey woke to a cold, gray dawn, her legs were tangled in her bedsheets and her eyes were damp. 

If she closed them long enough, she could almost still feel a kiss linger across her lips. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's still Friday. It still counts! 
> 
> Sorry, all — this chapter was a bear, and it wanted to wrassle. I'm not thoroughly satisfied with the end result, but with any luck it'll make for an enjoyable read and start answering a few questions (or at least begin hinting at them). I do apologise for the angst, but it's a necessary evil to get us where we need to go. It's also the longest chapter thus far by a fair margin. I hope this ends up being a good thing.
> 
> Thanks to MaeReylo and audreyfan4ever on Twitter for reassuring me on a characterisation point. Why yes, I have a Twitter! In fact, I have two! But for now you can have the one I'm using for this story: enemiestolover1. Come talk to me on the rare occasions where I say anything worth reading. 
> 
> See you all on Tuesday for the next round.

January 24th was, to put it mildly, an awful day. It was awful this year. It had been awful last year. And the year before. 

And it had been unbearable the year before that, when Rey had pushed the Falcon to make record time to the airport in the middle of a winter storm, begging the old girl’s balding tires to keep enough tread on the snow-covered roads to get them there in one piece. 

The Falcon had obliged. She’d had rougher runs when she’d belonged to Ben, and even worse when she’d been Ben’s father’s back in the seventies. She’d held together.

(Rey herself had only broken when she got there, ran to the commuter terminal and pushed her way onto the tarmac, and even then she wasn’t enough to convince him to stay.)

The moment, the words lingered as Rey lay in bed with the covers bunched up to her chin, staring into the middle distance. Three years and she still half expected the smell of chocolate-chip pancakes to waft in from the kitchen before Ben appeared and threw himself into the bed, wrapping his big bear body around hers and blowing raspberries on her belly until she burst into peals of laughter and begrudgingly got up. 

Rey had never been big on anniversaries. With a past like hers, memories were something to be left behind, not celebrated. But Ben had grown up touch-starved and distant from his parents, and he took any opportunity to shower Rey with affection and hold onto the slice of happiness they’d carved out together with both hands. 

At least, until he’d gotten a more tempting offer. Until he’d left her behind to chase it. 

Rey’s phone screen flashed with the banner of a text from Finn. Probably confirming their lunch date for that afternoon. It had become something of a new tradition, getting her out of the house and keeping her distracted when the calendar turned to the 24th and she sank wholesale into misery and regret. 

Groaning with the effort of sitting up while still half-asleep, Rey took her phone in hand and entered her passcode to view the text:

_Morning, sunshine. Me and Poe will be by to pick you up at noon to take you to lunch. We’ve got a reservation at the little French place on Crawford. See you then. <3 _

Rey exhaled slowly through her nose, setting her head back against the pillows with a soft thump.

 _Me and Poe_. Great. So now Finn’s boyfriend was inserting himself into the few things she and Finn had to themselves. They’d even decided the place and time without consulting her. And French food? Who the hell had French food for a casual lunch? It was Vietnamese on the 24th, always, because Ben hadn’t liked bánh mì and in her mind it was a spiteful little stab at him to get it (even though he’d never stopped _her_ from getting it, and in fact he would regularly pick up takeaway for her from the place down the block when he was on his way home from his publisher’s, but it still felt like a small victory. The only kind she had with him at this point). 

It wasn’t like she missed Ben, Rey thought as she hauled herself out of bed and retrieved her bathrobe from where she’d tossed it over a nearby chair. It had been three years, after all. She’d lived a whole life since then. And, hell, _Lost Galaxy_ was on hiatus, so even that thread of memory was growing thinner over time. 

She slumped down into the chair, unplugging her laptop from where it lay charging on the floor and hoisting it up into her lap. Okay, being in the fandom for it made that one a bit more difficult than it needed to be. But she was damned if she was going to let him take it from her. 

Besides which, it was a question of morals. Of doing right and stopping _those_ people from mocking the pain of people who had been hurt and making light of abuse and unequal power dynamics. It was almost like… reclaiming some form of agency that she’d lost and wasn’t entirely sure how. It was straightforward, cut-and-dried. 

Rey’s eyes settled on the AO3 tab in her browser, and her heart sank.

Well.

At least it had been.

*****

_Are you still doing your recaps of that M*ttK*ra fic? When is the next chapter coming out? Love your blog!_

_your shading those mk freaks is giving me LIFE lmfao when is chapter 7 coming??_

_MORE RECAPS PLS DRAG THEM QUEEN_

_i have seen at least five mk posts across my dash today, we need your next “across the stars” liveblog NOW_

Forty-seven messages, all some variant of “where is Chapter Seven” sandwiched between complaints about MattKiras of increasing virulence. 

Rey pressed her thumbs into her eyes and slumped down in her chair. “It’s coming, okay?” she grumbled. She’d said it was, hadn’t she? Hadn’t she danced and mocked and given them plenty of grist for whatever spiteful mill they were working of late? 

Maybe if they were the ones who’d had to read Chapter Seven for themselves, they’d understand her struggle with it. Not even just because it was the 24th, although God knew that wasn’t making it any easier. It wasn’t even the fact that she’d had to read, with her own innocent eyes, Matt and Kira fucking on the page. 

The dream from last night still resonated, and Rey pressed her thumbs more tightly to her eyes until splotches of purple and sickly green emanated from the darkness. It had been so long since she’d dreamed of Ben — weeks, even. 

But in sleep it had been so easy to slot the two of them into Matt and Kira’s roles, given the way they’d been written. Kira was still angry and hurt, Matt still apologetic yet firm in his convictions, but when they fell together, it was as if a pebble had dropped into a still pond, like the universe wavered and rippled and spun in the wake of it. Matt had broken down, clinging to Kira and sobbing into her shoulder, whispering apologies and words of love as she held him and lost herself in the moment.

It had been so much like Rey’s first time with Ben. More tears, higher stakes, and the lingering phantom of regret, but there was something so familiar to it, and the bittersweetness choked her even as she tried to keep scrolling. 

How did you mock something like that, on today of all days? How did you excoriate words and feelings on the page that seemed to echo something you’d lost, something you held deep in the part of you that still felt anything? And for the sharp-toothed amusement of faceless strangers, no less? 

It was straightforward. It was cut-and-dried. It was a question of morals.

Rey just wasn’t sure what hers were anymore. 

*****

_hi, everyone — thereyoflight here. chapter 7 is going to be delayed. i know, it’s already behind schedule, but i’ve gotten a million messages and i just don’t have the stamina to get through them or make this anything close to worthwhile right now. thanks for following and i promise i’ll get it to you ASAP._

Rey hesitated, her fingers poised over the keys before she hastily typed:

_and please be kind to each other. there’s enough hurt out there already._

She hit the post button and snapped her laptop shut before she could second-guess the addendum. There. If nothing else, she’d bought herself some time. There’d been rumours of the first teaser images from the next season of _Lost Galaxy_ dropping some time this week as well, so with any luck the fandom would move on to tearing those crumbs apart and she’d slip off their radar long enough to regroup. 

But it wasn’t like she was _weak_ now or anything like that. She was still on the right side of things. She still knew MattKira for what it was, in all its toxic, abusive glory. 

And she’d finish the story. She would. 

Rey stared at her laptop where it lay closed in her lap. There hadn’t been any messages from Kylo when she’d logged on, which wasn’t unusual in and of itself — he wasn’t much of a morning person, from what she could tell — but there had been a strange pang in her chest at the lack of notifications from him.

 _Tomorrow’s actually not a great day for me, either,_ he’d said. 

What a pair they were, Rey thought with a sardonic smile. She closed her eyes and rested her head back, idly toying with her laptop’s power cord where it lay curled over the arm of the chair. Maybe she could even drop that into one of her liveblogs at some point, once she’d hit the midpoint. Okay, yes, the author _is_ a MattKira and he’s a guy so there are all kinds of gross implications there but actually he’s pretty cool and laidback and maybe in just this one case this one particular shipper was maybe almost kind of okay?

Ha. Sure. She might as well douse her blog in petrol and light it on fire herself at that point. 

Still… she hoped he was doing better than she was today.

Even if he was a filthy MattKira shipper.

*****

“So this guy comes in to exchange a gift he’d bought for his girlfriend…”

“Not even his girlfriend,” Poe interjected around a mouthful of his croque monsieur, “just a girl he was trying to fuck.” 

“Unsuccessfully,” Finn added, flashing a grin at Rey. “And he starts talking and apparently they’d been at a party with a bunch of their friends and she’d kissed some other guy right in front of him.” 

“With tongue?” Poe asked.

“Sloppy as _fuck._ ” Finn tore off a piece of his baguette and dipped it in his soup. “So he’s moping around like a kicked puppy and I look around, Armitage is in the back running payroll or whatever the hell he gets up to that wedges that stick so far up his ass, and I lean across the counter and tell the guy… look, it’s not who kisses her, it’s who lays the pipe first, you know what I mean?”

Poe burst into laughter, pounding the table with his fist. 

Rey grimaced, pushing her salad aside. “That’s disgusting.” 

“It’s a _joke,_ Rey.” Finn exchanged a look with Poe, who was grinning widely and mock-toasted him with his water glass. “Anyway, he bought some stuff for himself and felt better, so what’s the harm?”

"Apart from the misogyny?"

“She’s spending too much time in that whole online fan thing,” Poe said, gesturing with his glass before taking a deep draught. “They’re all too serious about everything.” 

“Says the man who runs a progressive activist Twitter account with… how many followers again?” Rey rolled her eyes. 

“160k, but we’re actually effecting change, not just bitching about who fucked who in some space show.” 

“Poe.” Finn narrowed his eyes and started to lean across the table, but Rey slapped his chest with the back of her hand, her eyes not moving from Poe’s. 

“Was it effecting change when you doxxed that high school girl who had the same name as the crazy bitch with the MAGA hat in that McDonald’s? The video _you_ made viral, by the way?”

“Racists don’t get the benefit of the doubt, Rey.” 

“She was _fifteen_ and she didn’t even do anything!” 

“Guys.” Finn pressed his hands down on the table. “Cool it, okay? This isn’t what today is about.” 

“No, it’s about…” Poe stopped abruptly, shaking his head and reaching for his wineglass. “Nevermind.” 

Rey’s lips twisted into a mirthless smile, and she leaned back with her arms crossed over her chest. “Say it. I fucking dare you.” 

“Rey…” 

“No, she wants a fight?” Poe wasn’t smiling, and he set his wineglass back down without taking a sip. “She wants to do this? Fine. Talk about activism when you’re lost in your own little world where what happens to fictional characters means more than what’s happening to real people. You could do so much good, and instead you’re playing house on Tumblr.” 

“You’re affecting real people!” Rey seethed. “You’re acting like the ends justify the means and like being some kind of keyboard warrior makes a difference in the world.”

“Got a mirror, honey? Because you’re doing the exact same fucking thing. At least I’m not in this just because my boyfriend fucked off three years ago and I couldn’t handle it.” 

Poe winced a heartbeat after the words had passed his lips, and Finn’s jaw was set, cheeks darkening in anger as he sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh shit, Rey, I didn’t mean that, I’m…”

Rey wordlessly pushed her chair back and slipped her coat over her shoulders. “I’ll catch an Uber home,” she said. Her voice was tight. “Thanks for lunch. It was great.” 

“Rey…” Finn reached for her with one hand, but she batted it away. He turned to Poe with narrowed eyes. “You’re fucking out of line, man. You have no idea what she’s going through.” 

Rey shook her head. “No one does,” she said. “Not one of you.” 

She reached into her purse and extracted a few crumpled bills, tossing them on the table. Distantly she heard Finn calling her name, Poe frantically trying to apologise, but it blended together with the din of the restaurant as she walked out into the cold. 

The sky had darkened to a slate grey, sleet and snow mixing into a frigid, icy mess. A city bus was fishtailing down at the intersection, police lights flashed from where a cruiser sat parked next to a sedan and an SUV that had collided on the slick road, and Rey cursed as a particularly large piece of ice hit her in the eye.

Another picture-perfect January 24th. 

With any luck, given how her day had already gone, Ben was spending his on fire. 

*****

_\- Rey, I’m so fucking sorry about earlier. Poe wanted to apologise himself but I told him not to make it worse. Can we buy you dinner? Anywhere you want, promise. We can even do takeaway. Let me know, okay?_

Rey slammed her keys down on the table by the front entryway and tapped out a quick response. 

_\- Poe can go fuck himself and I want to be alone_

Finn’s response was immediate: 

_\- Rey, come on. It’s really awkward for me with the two of you fighting..._

Rey bit back a laugh.

_\- It’s awkward for YOU? I’ve tried to get along with him for your sake but he stepped so far over the line today he was in another fucking galaxy_

_\- Look, he means well, okay? He wasn’t there, he doesn’t know. Fuck I WAS there and I swear sometimes I don’t get why you’re still in such bad shape over it. You know you dodged a bullet, right? Like imagine if you’d actually ended up with that guy_

_\- Rey, come on... this isn’t like you_

Rey stared at her screen. The snow on her coat was melting and dripping onto the floor, and she didn’t even notice. Finn. Poe. Her followers on her blog. Everyone, _everyone_ seemed to want some piece of her, telling her who she was and what she was feeling. 

_I am so fucking tired of everyone acting like they know me. No one does_ , she wrote to Finn, and hit ‘send’.

She swiped her thumb across the crack in the screen to put her phone in airplane mode and tossed it onto the table, then reached behind her to secure the deadbolt in the front door. 

*****

By four o’clock, Rey was in slightly better spirits. She’d taken a long soak in the tub, applied a face mask (again thankful that Finn wasn’t around, although odds were he’d be more abashed in mocking her for it given the events of the day), painted her toenails (badly, more like a child fingerpainting than a proper pedicure, but now her nails were a bright spot of vivid blue in an otherwise terrible day, and that was something), and worked her way through a pint of sub-premium-but-still-pretty-good-for-the-price off-brand ice cream. 

Still, even after a few hours of self-indulgence, she was a font of nervous energy and anger. She supposed she could text Poe and continue their fight from earlier, but that had diminishing returns, and she did feel a bit guilty every time they butted heads (more for Finn’s sake than anything). It wasn’t that Poe was a bad guy, but he had the kind of directionless fire to his passion for doing good that led to collateral damage more often than not. 

_You’re doing the exact same fucking thing._

Rey hesitated as she shifted her favourite chenille blanket on her shoulders and hauled her laptop onto the couch, Poe’s words lingering in the air around her. No. No, it was different. He was hurting real people by being so careless and dogged in his pursuit of the cause. It wasn’t like…

She frowned as she cracked open her laptop and navigated to Tumblr. Maybe this brief hiatus thing was a bad idea. She was already all kinds of upside down, and somehow this year had been worse than most. At least venting her frustrations on “Across the Stars” was more or less harmless — Kylo had a sense of humour about it, and if the other antis snarked amongst themselves about it, well, what harm was there in it if she…

Rey stopped scrolling just a few posts down as what seemed for all the world to be a call to arms crossed her dashboard. 

_Are you proud of yourselves, MattKiras?_ the post read. _You bullied a helpless girl off Tumblr with your toxic fucking ship and your garbage takes. Hope you’re real happy, class acts, all of you. You’ll get what you deserve_

Bullied? Who had been bullied off Tumblr? 

_JUSTICE FOR THEREYOFLIGHT!_

...what. 

_What._

There was a post by a bewildered MattKira asking for receipts and offering to police their community if someone was being attacked, and one of Rey’s fiercer mutuals was having none of it:

_check her blog you fucking fascist. if you fuckers had a sense of humour none of this would have happened, but a minor abuse survivor calls you out for fetishising M*ttK*ra in your rapefics and you send her death threats and suicide bait her?? fuck. OFF._

Rey’s brow furrowed as she skimmed through the notes, recognizing fully half the URLs liking or reblogging the post. 

But she… wasn’t a minor. Or an abuse survivor, for all that Ben had broken her heart. And _death threats?_ Suicide baiting? The worst thing she had in her inbox was a tie between the endless requests for more “Across the Stars” recaps and one particularly graphic and violent revenge fantasy gleefully imagining just how Kira might murder Matt in the next season (Rey had reported that one. She still wasn’t convinced they were joking). 

She scrolled deeper into her dash, which had, in the hours she’d spent regrouping off Tumblr and struggling to deal with the 24th, become a bizarre carnival of absurdity. 

A new set image from the previous season of Kira’s actress, Zoey, dressed in her battle uniform that the MattKiras had, not unreasonably, pointed out was more, well, boob-tastic than some of her prior outfits? _MattKiras are sexualising Kira, the MISOGYNY, she’s practically a minor!_

(Kira was 24 in the show, and Zoey was 27. Even Rey wasn’t sure where they were getting that one.)

MattKiras had started banding together to use yellow as “their” colour in their blog designs, in honor of Kira’s laser sword? An anti had written a histrionic post about how yellow was her favourite colour and now the MattKiras had STOLEN it, they’d ruined it forever (total notes: 3,251, nearly all offering their heartfelt support for the pain of grand theft yellow). 

Someone was arguing that Matt and Kira were secretly long-lost twins and thus the shippers were supporting incest, and one of the published writers within their cohort had reblogged it, noting that it was an interesting theory. 

(Never mind that Matt was seven years older than Kira, something that the antis themselves had always used as proof that there was a problematic power differential between them.)

Rey frowned and burrowed more deeply into her blanket. At least those were relatively harmless — less so were the reblogs from her mutuals laughing at upset MattKiras, declaring that they deserved it for what they’d done to thereyoflight, they were just getting back some of their own. 

But no one had _done_ anything to her. Rey worried her lip between her teeth, the fingertips of the hand not clutching the blanket closed around her shoulders hovering over the trackpad. She really should make a post setting the record straight, just for the sake of...

But they’d turned on other antis for less. One step out of line, the barest hint that you were sympathetic to MattKiras, and you were done for. Being an abuse apologist was bad enough. Being an apologist _for_ the apologists? You might as well just declare open season on your inbox yourself. 

And of course it was all happening on January 24th, when Rey was too emotionally drained to do much of anything, let alone figure out where she stood in a fandom war when just yesterday she’d been so sure of herself. 

...but had she been, really? Her gaze drifted to the AO3 tab, still sitting there, innocuous and unassuming even as its contents had somehow turned her world upside down. 

She still didn’t ship MattKira. She couldn’t. 

But “Across the Stars” resonated despite her best efforts, and the writer behind it…

_Tomorrow’s actually not a great day for me, either._

She’d told Finn that no one knew her, and she meant it. But maybe, just maybe there was someone who could understand her. 

Before she realized it, Rey had pulled up the message box and was typing frantically.

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _Kylo, are you there? I really need to talk_

Nothing. The message icon next to Kylo’s avatar was greyed out. Rey bit back a sob and slumped down, resting her forehead against her laptop screen. Her eyes were burning, and she blinked furiously.

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i_ _don’t want to put all of this on you but the anti-MattKiras are making up this thing that I’ve been getting death threats for the readthroughs or something like that and i think a lot of people are getting caught up in the crossfire?? Are you okay?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_** _..._ _i_ _don’t think you’re here_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_** _i_ _hope you’re okay. I know it was a bad day for you too_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _y_ _ou should eat something if you haven’t already. My friends took me to lunch and it was a disaster but i had a baguette and that was pretty rad. bread makes up for a lot of evils_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _it’s going to be so weird when you log on and see all of this_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _……._
> 
> **_thereyoflight: …._ ** _kylo i don’t know what to do_

She blinked harder, and the screen swam in front of her. 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _do i tell them to stop? Would they even listen?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _what kind of person does it make me if i’m not sure if i want them to?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _this is all your fault, really_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i understood everything before you and your fucking story_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i was HAPPY_

She was crying openly now, typing without thinking, screaming into the void. 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _they loved me and i didn’t have to think about what was right and i didn’t have friends’ boyfriends yelling at me about some fucking morality issues_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _...that’s not even fair to you is it_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i wasn’t happy_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _it’s been a long time since i was, i think_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _you know i never really noticed before?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i don’t know what to do kylo_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _talk to me. please_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _tell me that it’s going to be okay, tell me there’s a tomorrow just like there’s one for matt and kira_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _tell me why you believe in them so fucking much_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _maybe i’ll believe in myself again_

Rey had ended up crying over Ben every January 24th for the last three years. 

She was pretty sure she was crying for herself for the first time.

*****

_The fire cracked and popped, casting writhing shadows against the cave wall as Kira clutched Matt in her arms._

_“I missed this,” he gasped, pressing his lips to her temple in a feverish kiss. His mouth skimmed down her cheek, the line of her jaw. Kira’s breath hitched as Matt leveraged another smooth thrust into her, and he ducked his head against her throat, his broad shoulders trembling. “I missed_ **_you_** _.”_

_“I never wanted to miss you,” Kira managed, biting back a curse when Matt’s clever fingertips found her hot flesh. “I wanted to forget you. But I couldn’t. I tried so hard…!”_

_Matt leaned up to kiss her, wrapping one arm around her shoulders and pulling her close. It wasn’t desperate, primal fucking, like that night in the Forest of Waking Solace, all teeth and grasping hands as Kira rode him into the glittering dust. This was needy, mournful, each reverent touch a reminder of all the nights they’d spent apart, the nights they’d once more face alone once this was over._

_“Don’t,” Kira breathed, tugging on the ends of his dark hair and forcing him to meet her gaze even as he continued to thrust into her. “Don’t you think about leaving me when you’re still_ **_fucking_ ** _me, Mattias Logan, I swear to God…”_

_He laughed at that, even as his eyes were damp and his tears and sweat dripped onto her skin. “You deserve better than me, beloved,” he said. “You always did. I never left you because I wanted to, I left because…” He groaned as Kira arched beneath him, her eyes fluttering shut and her hands gripping the planes of his back as she came, and Matt dropped his head to her shoulder as he emptied inside her a moment later._

_The cave echoed with the sounds of their harsh breathing, and they were both slick with sweat. Still Kira held him, stroking his damp hair, pressing idle kisses to his temple._

_“You’re an idiot,” she said, affectionate, and she could feel Matt’s smile curve against her sternum. “It’s not a matter of deserving.”_

_She tugged on his hair, pulling his head back. He stared her in the firelight, and his pupils were blown wide._

_“It’s about making things right,” she said softly._

_*****_

It was nearly midnight, and Rey was half-dozing in bed with her phone lit up beside her head on the pillow, as Matt and Kira once again found solace in each other at the end of Chapter Seven. 

She was up to Chapter Eleven now, but there was something to that first instance where they came together, where the future lay ahead and even with all the odds stacked against them, in that moment, there was love. There was hope. 

There was a chance to build something better.

*****

Rey had finally fallen into an uneasy sleep by two a.m. when her phone flashed. 

> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I wouldn’t believe in them if I didn’t still believe in you._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Sleep well. You made it._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _We both did._


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to work super late today so this one was written in a bit of a marathon writing session and went through a less rigorous editing process than usual. I'm surprisingly okay with the end result just the same. Odd how that works out.
> 
> A few breadcrumbs in this one, story-wise. Some very big revelations coming next chapter. You may have guessed some of them, but others I feel quite confident you haven't. 
> 
> Feel free to talk to me on Twitter at enemiestolover1. See you all on Friday!

She really should message him back before she went to work.

Rey frowned as she poured another cup of coffee, glancing back to where her phone lay facedown and unassuming on the couch in a thin, weak ray of early morning sunlight filtered through her cheap IKEA blinds. She’d woken just before dawn, in that strange liminal space of dark-blue skies and a faint hint of fire at the horizon, where everything still felt a bit like dreaming. 

(She’d dreamed about MattKira again. That in and of itself wasn’t too concerning, considering how much time she’d spent sparring with that side of the fandom of late and, well, everything with “Across the Stars”.)

(What was a bit concerning was how well she’d slept, and how full her heart had felt when she woke.)

Rey had ignored the blinking message icon on her phone until she’d retrieved her robe and shuffled blearily to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. Probably Finn trying to apologise _again,_ she’d thought, swinging open the door to the freezer and retrieving the last two frozen waffles from the dented box she’d bought on discount at the corner shop. She’d turned off airplane mode late in the evening, and he’d sent no fewer than six texts conveying that he and Poe were so sorry, they didn’t mean it, please call them and let them know what they could do. 

They could start by giving her some goddamn space to be mad at them, Rey had thought, retrieving the chipped _ORGANA PUBLISHING_ mug from the overhead cabinet, freezing as she set it down on the counter. 

_“Early Christmas present from your mum?” Rey teased. Ben was seated on the couch in front of her, turning the mug over in his hands, and Rey rested her chin on his shoulder and leaned forward._

_“A two-dollar promotional mug probably left over from some industry event six months ago? Hardly. This is a statement.” He gave her a faint grin, but there was little humour in it. “‘Dear son, I know you’re trying to build a life for you and your girlfriend, but wouldn’t it be great if you came and worked for starvation wages writing copy for start-up nonprofit orgs?’”_

_“At least it would get published, unlike that novel you keep hiding away in your desk drawer.” Rey smiled and kissed his neck, squealing as Ben reached back with one arm and pulled her over the back of the couch one-handed to sprawl across his lap._

_“I’m working on it,” he said, shifting her to sit more comfortably in his arms. “I’ve…” He hesitated. “I’m getting offers that could change everything...”_

Rey had grit her teeth and stashed the mug back in the cabinet, pulling down a plain one in its place, pouring a cup of coffee and slotting the waffles into the toaster before making her way back to the living room.

It was only when she’d sat down that she’d finally read her messages and realised just who had contacted her last night after she’d fallen asleep. 

Rey sipped her second cup of coffee and hazarded another glance back at her phone. Her laptop was charging in her bedroom, but she had no real desire to navigate back to Tumblr for at least the next few days, not until the furor that had erupted seemingly overnight subsided. 

But she did have the Tumblr app on her phone, and even though she had post notifications turned off, she’d forgotten to disable notifications for messages. Which had left her sinking into the sofa, gripping her coffee in one hand and scrolling through Kylo’s messages with the other, swallowing against the lump in her throat. 

An hour later, and Rey still wasn’t sure what to say to him, or what to do with that fucking sincerity that always seemed to leave her at a loss. Four short sentences and Kylo had laid her bare in a way that precious little had in the last three years. It had always felt like no one understood her; certainly no one understood what had happened that day. She’d said as much to Finn yesterday, when she’d been halfway between anger and tears and walked out of the restaurant she hadn’t even wanted to go to. 

But Kylo… 

He cut to the bone with just a few words. He saw her, somehow. He was a virtual stranger, a _MattKira shipper_ , no less, and yet… he got it. He got her. 

And she’d thought the _dream_ was concerning.

*****

In the end, Rey found herself rushing out the door to catch her bus, tugging one boot on with her transit card clenched between her teeth as she prayed the Saturday bus schedule would be less erratic than usual.

She still hadn’t messaged Kylo.

It wasn’t for lack of trying — the whole reason Rey was even running late in the first place was due to the amount of time she’d spent mentally drafting a response. She’d imagined clever and off-hand as she washed her hair and twisted the wet strands into a neat plait. She’d thought of sincere and heartfelt as she’d rinsed her mug out in the sink. She’d even briefly considered something that might almost be classed as coy (that one had been thrown out as quickly as it had crossed her mind) as she’d tugged on her worn jeans and broken-in hoodie. 

If it were during the week and she were working at the coffee shop, at least she’d have the bustle and noise to distract her. But off weekends were for her second job working the desk at Tatooine Auto Repair (no matter how many times she told Old Man Luke she knew her way around a carburetor and could shoulder some of the workload instead of sitting around and watching bad Saturday morning news magazine programs in an empty waiting room), and that meant plenty of downtime in between customers to think. 

Which today meant staring at her phone and trying to figure out what to say to Kylo for the hundredth time.

“I’ve seen lobsters on their way to a pot of boiling water that looked less doomed.” Rey glanced up to see Luke leaning against the door to the office, wiping his hands on an oil-stained rag. He gestured to her phone. “Boy trouble? Not on company time, you know that.” 

“You _are_ the company, and you are not busy.” Rey rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t quite suppress her answering hint of a smile. She’d landed on Luke’s doorstep two years back, and even though he’d fired her twice and she’d quit three times, she could tolerate his bullshit, and he pretended to tolerate hers. 

“Three customers today.” Luke jerked his head towards the nearest bay. “That’s busy for us.” 

“Three oil changes. Really packing them in, aren’t you, Skywalker.” Rey turned her phone over on the desk in front of her. “And not that it’s your business, but I haven’t had ‘boy trouble’ in a very long time. Yesterday was just a bit… difficult, and a friend was checking in on me.” 

_Friend._ Christ, she’d really said it, hadn’t she. 

Well, it wasn’t like Luke knew Kylo, so fuck it. 

“Yesterday?” Luke glanced at the calendar pinned up by the magazine rack and sighed. “Ah, the 24th. You okay?” 

Rey raised an eyebrow at him. “Sorry?”

He shrugged lightly. “It’s not the best day for my family, so I always remember it’s a rough one for you, too. I spent it with my sister and my nephew. All these years and the little bastard still cheats at Monopoly.” 

Rey offered him a wry smile. “I’m beginning to think January 24th is just cursed. My friend had a rough go of it as well.” 

“Well, next year the two of you can come over for board games and painfully earnest familial conversations. Just to confirm the ‘cursed’ theory.” 

“Order Vietnamese and it’s a deal.” 

“If you’re paying.”

“Give me a raise and we’ll talk.” 

Luke tossed the rag onto the desk and grinned when Rey grimaced. “Hey, how’s…” he started, before catching her eye and shaking his head. “Nevermind. It’s nothing.” 

“Nothing is ‘nothing’ with you,” Rey said, eyeing him.

Luke hesitated, drumming his fingertips on the corner of the desk. “The art thing,” he said in a gruff voice. “School. Whatever it was you were doing. Wanted to do. That still going?” 

Rey bit the inside of her cheek and pushed the rag aside. “I haven’t even thought about it since just after I started here. That door closed a long time ago. Why?”

“Hm.” Luke stroked his beard in the way he did when he wasn’t saying something, and Rey narrowed her eyes at him. “Not sure why, but it crossed my mind this morning.” 

He shook his head again. “It’s nothing,” he repeated before nodding to the open notebook on the desk in front of her. “Do me a favour and finalise appointments for the beginning of the week before you get caught up in your Googler or whatever it is you kids spend all your time on. You may not be getting sucked in by a pair of pretty eyes, but I’m no match for those damn phones.”

*****

 _Thank you for last night._ That sounded way more sordid than it had any right to.

 _I appreciate what you said._ Ugh, one step above the sincerity of a corporate ‘thank you’ card.

 _I’m sorry for emotionally vomiting all over your messages app._ Gross. 

_Your stupid fucking fic made a horrible day so much better so thank you for writing it, even though it’s objectively evil._ Simultaneously too honest and… not, all at once. 

Rey rested her forehead against the desk, shoulders slumping as she turned her cheek against the smooth wood and stared at her phone screen. Why was this so _hard?_ She could toss out pithy statements slamming MattKira as easy as breathing. 

Well, Rey amended, sighing and sitting up, she could until yesterday. 

(She’d given into temptation and briefly glanced at Tumblr on her lunch break, but by the time she’d gotten to a post from a fellow anti encouraging the plagiarism of MattKira fics as an act of nonviolent protest, she’d put her phone in the desk drawer and read an ancient issue of _Golf Digest_ instead.)

Kylo hadn’t messaged her again, even as the clock inched towards five o’clock and the sun began to set behind the tall pines that ringed the shop. He hadn’t updated his blog, either, and Rey felt a twinge of guilt at what his inbox might look like given the state of turmoil in the fandom at the moment.

But she _had_ told people to be kind to each other, she thought, leaning back in her chair and frowning. What else could she even do at this point? What could she possibly do to douse the flames? 

“Across the Stars” was open in her mobile browser, and she’d lingered at the end of Chapter Eleven as Matt and Kira engaged in a passionate makeout session that seemed to presage yet another sex scene in the following chapter. Kylo _had_ warned that there were a lot of them, as had…

There was a sharp pang in her chest at the thought of Rose. How was she faring in all of this? She was a sweet girl, even if she and Rey had gone their separate ways, and the thought of her getting the kind of hateful comments Rey had seen crossing her dash…

Would starting the readthroughs again draw their fire and give the antis something to sink their teeth into? Even if it tore at her? 

Rey scrubbed a hand over her face, opening the Tumblr app and navigating over to her messages. 

Then, before she could second-guess herself: 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _thank you. this is really sweet_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _also, I could use your help with something_

She held her breath as she hit “send”.

*****

> **_thekyloren:_ ** _You’re welcome. What can I help with?_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _(I’m proud of you, by the way. I don’t know if I should say that, and I hope it doesn’t come off as condescending.)_

Rey flopped over in bed and groaned, smushing her cheek against the pillow as she swiped her thumb across her phone to unlock it. 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _ugh kylo it’s past midnight, I sent you a message like seven hours ago_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _You took over twelve to answer mine, so._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _what, were you waiting for me?_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Maybe._

Rey frowned even as her cheeks warmed. 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _sorry, it took awhile to figure out what to say. I was kind of embarrassing last night. Forget any of it happened please and thank you_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _It wasn’t embarrassing._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i_ _think i get to decide if something I said was embarrassing or not, and that shit was mortifying_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Amend that, it didn’t embarrass me. I was just sorry that I wasn’t there for you when you messaged._

And there it was again, that fucking sincerity that radiated from everything he said.

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _see you say stuff like that and i really do end up wondering if you’re some 40-year-old neckbeard trying to get laid through all of this fandom shit_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I mean, if it helps, I’m 31._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _And I just shaved this morning._

He’d sidestepped the last bit, and Rey raised an eyebrow but let it be. 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _were you okay yesterday, btw? You never did say_

There was a long pause, then:

> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I survived. Had a long therapy session and spent some time with family. The former was helpful, the latter not so much. I would have preferred to spend it talking shop with you, but I saw that you’ve retired for the time being._

Ah. So he’d seen her post from yesterday. 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _j_ _ust a temporary delay. But that is what I wanted to talk to you about_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i_ _liked Chapter 7_

Oh _fuck._ Rey slapped a pillow over her face and muffled a curse into it. She’d meant to build up to that, dammit. 

> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Really?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _yes, okay? It was well-written and_

She hesitated. 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i_ _liked what Kira said. At the end_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I’m glad. I thought of you when_

The message ended abruptly, and Rey stared at the screen, brow furrowed in confusion.

> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Nothing. Sorry. I’m glad it spoke to you._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I am a little sorry you’re having a hard time skewering it, though. I was looking forward to seeing your takedown of the sex scene._

Oh, there was that cheek. Rey snuggled deeper into bed and tapped at her phone screen.

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _it wasn’t as terrible as I expected it to be_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _and if you tell anyone i said that i will break your legs, “KyloRen”_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Your secret’s safe with me, “Isobel”._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _like….. ugh this is probably tmi_

But it was past midnight. 

Liminal spaces and all that.

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i liked that you had matt get kira off before they did anything_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _most guys who write fics just have the guy shove it in and try to write porn dialogue_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _moans with way too many vowels all spelled out, that kind of thing_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I mean, Matt may be a bastard but he’s still a gentleman. Of course he got Kira off first._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _“of course”_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _you’re so fucking WEIRD_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Thanks. Also, I’m impressed. We’ve been talking about a MattKira sex scene for a solid minute and you haven’t called it a rapefic or me an abuse apologist once._

Rey bit her lip, feeling a swell of guilt that surprised her even as she typed.

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _did you get any hate last night? :\_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _No more than usual._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _what’s usual??_

She sounded desperate, she knew she did, but she was too tired to pretend that it wasn’t starting to matter.

Kylo didn’t say anything for several minutes, even as Rey frantically refreshed the app. 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _if you got any messages slamming you about me or anything like that, they were lying_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i’m just saying that because there were a bunch of posts_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i’m not a minor, I’m 25_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i didn’t get any attacks or anything over the readthroughs, people were just being really pushy about updates and i needed a break because yesterday was so terrible_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _and it all got out of hand and i don’t know what to do anymore_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i didn’t want this, i don’t even know how i got here_

She was doing it again, spilling her guts to a total stranger and wishing he would just _say_ something.

Finally:

> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I’m sorry._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _what the fuck, it’s not your fault_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Do you believe all of it?_

It was Rey’s turn to pause. 

There was the lingering worry that maybe all of this was a trap, that he was secretly sending screenshots to some MattKira Discord, saving receipts about her…

But deep down, she knew this was something else.

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i wanted to_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i tried to convince myself. I wanted to think i was doing the right thing_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i just wanted to help people. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt like i was_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _but then you ruined everything_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I do that a lot._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _I was joking_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I wasn’t._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _So what do you want to do?_

Rey took a deep breath. There was only the truth.

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i don’t want to like you_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _That just means you’re smart._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _but i did read up to chapter 11 last night_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _...really?_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _There’s_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Sorry, hit enter too fast. There’s another sex scene in Chapter 12. If you want to skip that. Or read it. You said you liked the last one. I think this one is good, too. Well. “Good,” what’s good with this stuff._

Oh God, he was rambling, and fuck her, it was almost charming. 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _calm down virgin_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Again, have had sex before._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _my POINT is_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i’m really really behind on readthroughs now_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _like i have five chapters to catch up on_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _You can do it. I have the utmost faith in you._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _OH MY GOD SHUT UP_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _AS I WAS SAYING_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i have five chapters to catch up on_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _and then i’ve got to get all the way to chapter 23_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _because SOMEONE TALKS TOO MUCH_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _so_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _….._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _….kylo??_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Sorry._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Practising being quiet._

_This motherfucker_.

Rey hid her smile against the pillow. 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _here’s my plan_

Kylo was quiet and didn’t interrupt as she laid it out for him over a series of messages, only offering the occasional comment as she solicited his input.

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _what do you think?_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _...I think it could work._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I’m just not sure what your game is._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _maybe i just want to read your damn sex scenes in peace_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _and stop the damn piranhas_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I don’t recall writing any piranhas into a sex scene._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _you are so fucking stupid kylo i swear to god_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _so… are you with me?_

Another long pause, and Rey held her breath as she stared at her phone.

> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Always._


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a bit late because it is the longest chapter yet and I was debating breaking it into two. I hope keeping it all together is the right call. 
> 
> Also: I am very sorry.
> 
> See you on Tuesday for the backstory.

_Hey guys — thereyoflight here!!_

_First of all, I AM FINE, please stop worrying, no one has done anything to me_

_there has been a LOT going on behind the scenes. basically: the readthroughs have been great, super fun, and watching the mattkiras rage over it has been a trip. but with LG coming back in September and the first leaked pics coming thru (they’re filming together AGAIN, ugh), i think we can do more._

_so yours truly_

_is infiltrating the mattkira hive._

_yeah, you heard me. i’m getting them to trust me and think i’m one of them. Wild, right?? lmao but it’s already working (shhh!!). we’ll find out what they’re REALLY up to and be ready with the receipts when shit goes down in a few months_

_this does mean i’m gonna have to go dark here just so i can focus on the mission — sorry!! But it’ll be worth it and the readthroughs will be so much better when i know firsthand how they think. i’d also like to ask that all of you refrain from interacting with the shippers and keep the discourse to a minimum to help make this easier. I know, there’s so much to make fun of!! but in the long-term it’ll be a HUGE help_

_Wish me luck, and i’ll see you on the other side >:) _

_thereyoflight xoxo_

There were several things that objectively made this part of The Plan, if Rey were serious about implementing it, a long shot at best. 

First, it assumed that a fandom subjected to years of targeted attacks would be uncritical enough not to notice an obvious fake in their midst.

Second, it also assumed that said fandom would indeed have some form of super secret machinations going on behind the scenes when they’d been willing to have a whole MattKira Monsterfuck Week publicly two years in a row.

And third, it neglected to consider that maybe the secret infiltration of any group was best accomplished by _not_ announcing one’s intentions to do so on a public blog with upwards of eight thousand followers.

But, then again, the shippers weren’t the target. At least not for her side of things.

Rey leaned back in her chair and exhaled slowly as she hit the ‘post’ button. Phase I was complete. And all before her first cup of coffee had even gotten cold. 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _ok, it’s up_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _with any luck they’ll take the bait_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _how’s yours coming along?_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Slowly. You’re asking me to be social and… what was it?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _fun_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Right. Not exactly in my wheelhouse._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i bet_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _let me see your draft?_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Why?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _:(_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Sigh._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Hang on._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _“KyloRen here. This is overdue.”_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _“It has come to my attention that this fandom has been subjected to any number of attacks of late, and that my story ‘Across the Stars’ has been a catalyst. I would apologise for this, but I’ve done nothing wrong, at least in that capacity, and neither have any of you.”_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _“What I’d like to propose as something of a positive counter is an impromptu MattKira celebration this upcoming week. I know that there are several projects slated for Valentine’s Day, but rather than continuing to engage with those who mean you (and us) harm, I suggest spending the week reblogging MattKira-positive posts, sharing our favourite stories, that kind of thing. No talking to antis allowed.”_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _“I know Chapter 24 has been long-delayed, but if we can collectively do this, I will see to it that ‘Across the Stars’ is updated by Valentine’s Day.”_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _That’s all I have so far._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _you’re going to update??_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _You’re not even that far into the story yet._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i_ _'_ _ll catch up!!_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Ha. I don’t doubt it. Sometimes you are just…_

Rey drummed her fingers against her trackpad, waiting. It was usually worth waiting when Kylo took his time to say something.

> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Nothing._

...well, so much for that one. 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i’m nothing?_

She was half-joking, of course. He was oddly shy, even in those moments where his words were heavy with sincerity, and it wouldn’t be the first time he’d pulled back at the last second.

But then:

> **_thekyloren:_ ** _No. Not to me._

Rey’s cheeks heated, and her heart fluttered in her chest. Not that they were… it was… it wasn’t like _that._ She’d barely even had a crush on anyone since Ben, and just because she genuinely liked talking to Kylo and he was one of the few bright spots in her life right now and he seemed to understand her in a way that she hadn’t even realised she’d been desperate for…

It still wasn’t like that. 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _um, thanks_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Was that weird?_

Yes. No. It should be, and she wasn’t sure why it wasn’t. 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _you’re always weird_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I’m sorry._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _no no no, it’s a good thing_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _it’s like. a charming weird_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Thanks. I think._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Okay, mine is posted._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _excellent. Phase II is complete_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _And you’re sure they won’t figure out that we’re coordinating this?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _that one of the most prolific mattkira antis is working with the writer of one of the biggest mattkira fics to get everyone to calm tf down? what part of that is remotely believable? it sounds like something out of a bad hallmark movie_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I like those._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _lol why does that not surprise me_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _It does feel like a lot of effort when you could just. You know._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _what?_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _You could just leave. Walk away and start something new._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _You don’t have to do this._

It was an eerie echo of two sides of a desperate conversation years ago at the edge of a snow-swept runway, and Rey tipped her laptop away from her with shaking fingers and took a few deep breaths. 

> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Are you okay?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _sorry, that just reminded me of something_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i don’t think it's that easy_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _It never is. Leaving is hard._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _not as hard as getting left_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _That’s what you’re afraid of, isn’t it._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Walking away from all of it, even though it’s hurting you, because you think they’ll leave you if you do._

Fuck, she had to catch her bus in fifteen minutes and here she was, once again on the verge of tears. She’d barely cried at all in the sum of the last three years, and Kylo had her there damn near a dozen times inside a week, like he’d looked at the layers of defenses she’d built up since Ben and without even trying had pulled some secret thread that sent them all crumbling into dust. 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i have to go to work, i can’t do this_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _and i KNOW they’ll leave me_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _they don’t fuck with anyone who doesn’t toe the line_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Then don’t fuck with them. This is destroying you and they don’t fucking deserve that kind of power._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _are you MAD at me?_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I’m mad FOR you. There’s a difference._

…yeah, she was crying. _Fuck_ him. 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _you’re messing up my eyeliner you fucker_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i never even wear it_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _the one time i wear eye makeup and it is now ruined because you SUCK_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I’ll buy you waterproof eyeliner._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _YOU’D BETTER_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _And I’ll start drafting 24 and let you read my notes._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _are you trying to bribe me so i won’t be mad at you anymore_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Yes._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _How am I doing?_

Oh _fuck him._ Rey stifled a watery laugh that sounded more like a hiccup deep in her throat. How did this man take her from tears to fury to amusement to butterflies in such short order? Rey reached blindly for the box of tissues on the end table next to the couch and blew her nose, typing with one hand. 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _terribly_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _there had better be an outline for a sex scene when i get home from work before we can even think about calling it even_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _bastard_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _(also i want to know what you were ACTUALLY going to call me)_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _(i want an adjective ASAP)_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Just one?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i’ll be off work at the shop at 4_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _even you can come up with an adjective by then_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I appreciate your faith in me._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _anytime <3 _

...oh. 

_Fuck._

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _omg i’m so sorry i hit the wrong keyboard shortcut that was not supposed to be there_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _fuck_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _fucking motherfuck i am sorry_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _it’s an old laptop and sometimes the keys stick_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _and i spilled pop on it a few weeks back so i mean that literally_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i am so sorry this is so goddamn awkward……_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _If I tell you that the adjective in question was “adorable” would you stop trying to apologise?_

Rey was pretty sure her heart had stopped. 

It suddenly felt like she was toeing the edge of a cliff, staring down at a precipitous drop and weighing whether the impact would be worth the rush of the fall. 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _…_
> 
> **_thereyoflight: …_** _yes_

Fuck it.

She’d always wanted to fly.

*****

They’d had a bet as to whether or not the plan would pay dividends. Kylo was skeptical — not about his side of it, he was fairly confident he could marshal the MattKiras into something positive to draw their attention from the antis. But Rey’s part? Getting antis distracted long enough to stand down from the attack? It was like herding cats, if those cats had a collective sense of moral superiority and an endless collection of memes from 2014.

But, impossibly, it was working. Kylo, for all he grumbled about “forced social interaction,” had become a major draw for MattKira Fest, given that he’d been such an elusive writer up until that point. He’d taken to interacting with readers, answering questions about “Across the Stars,” even cracking a joke or two. 

He was drawing some fire from the antis, and there had been a few cross-tagged posts mocking the event, but several of the bigger names had loudly reminded their followers of thereyoflight’s “mission” and told them to be patient and wait for a bigger fish. The receipts were coming, they _knew_ it. 

It was the type of thing Rey herself would have said at one point. Hell, not too long ago, she would have actually gone through with the infiltration. 

Instead, when she’d seen other antis declaring their intentions to follow in her footsteps, she’d collected the names of some of the bigger MattKira Discords and group chats and sent her spy to warn them and advise them how to improve their vetting processes to thwart potential fakes.

(Kylo had sent her a rolling-eyes emoji the first time she’d called him her “spy,” but Rey knew he was secretly pleased.) 

Best of all, Rey finally had the mental and social space to dig into “Across the Stars” without feeling the need to justify it. 

To be clear, it still wasn’t that she shipped MattKira, because she totally did not. 

But reading “Across the Stars,” she could almost, for the first time, understand why other people did. 

*****

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _hey_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _chapter 15_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _they’re going back to the alliance_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _matt had better be safe or you are in so much fucking trouble kylo i swear to god_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _T_ _hey’re going back to the organisation where Matt has killed hundreds, if not thousands, of their ranks over the years. Think about it._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _but he’s with kira! And they trust her_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Maybe._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _KYLO_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Okay, they trust her. But she’s the light of justice, right? The flame of humanity? How could she love someone like Matt? How could they reconcile that?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _it’s none of their damn business that’s how_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _did you see how he ate her out in chapter 14???_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I mean, I wrote it._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _no one who’s evil eats pussy that good_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _they just don’t_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _and i know that’s probably making you uncomfortable but if you ever have sex again keep that in the back of your head okay_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Already enjoy that particular activity but thank you for the notice._

Rey wasn’t sure she could burrow any more deeply into the covers on her bed, but considering how red she was sure her cheeks were, she was going to damn well try. 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _seriously though he’s going to be okay right?_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _What happened to the “abuse apologism” and “can’t wait for Kira to cut Matt’s head off” stuff?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _if you could see the face i’m making at you right now_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I can imagine._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _look he’s spent the last fourteen chapters crying and apologising and talking to kira about everything he’s done and he’s trying his best_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _he’s not running, he’s willingly going to judgment_

And then there was the crux of it, the thing that she’d realised had drawn her in before she even knew it.

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _and he understands kira_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _that’s so important, you know?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i always saw all of these posts about how kira was so happy without matt, she had sam and nines and everyone in the alliance_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _but like… you look at her after the fated storyline, and her smile doesn’t reach her eyes and she’s always looking off to something because even with her friends she doesn’t have her fucking soulmate_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _like can you even imagine knowing there’s someone who’s half of your goddamn soul, someone who understands you on like a cellular level and you can’t be with them and you have to act like everything is okay and carry on like usual_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Yeah._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I can imagine._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _me too. That’s the worst part — I GET kira. i get why she wants to be with matt and_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _a_ _nd_

Rey hesitated, turning her cheek into the pillow. 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i think i’m starting to get matt, too_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _which scares me a little_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _he fucked up so much and i hated him for so long_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _but he’s trying to make it right, even if he can’t stay with kira and it costs him everything_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i can’t believe i’m fucking saying this but that’s almost hella romantic_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _You think so?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i hate myself for it but yeah_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _yeah it is_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _and i need these two idiots to have a happy ending so i hope you’re working on those last two chapters_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _What about you?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _what about me?_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _What would it take for you to have a happy ending?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _idk. No one’s ever asked me that before_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I’m asking you now._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _What would it take to get thereyoflight out of the dungeon and back into the sunlight?_

She wasn’t sure. It had been so long since she’d stood in the sun like that. 

But she was increasingly sure that whatever it would take, Kylo needed to be part of it. 

In the end, she fell asleep without answering.

*****

She got back to him the next morning, drinking a flat white and watching fat snowflakes fall outside her living room window.

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _art_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Sorry?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _the thing you asked me yesterday_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _happy endings of the non-hj kind. I think art would be part of mine_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i used to draw a lot. Stopped a few years back_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _but i think getting back into it would make me happy. I’ve even_

Rey hesitated. This was something personal, something she held so close to herself that even Finn didn’t know about it.

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i’ve done some lg fanart. mostly kira. Some landscapes to get a feel for the universe_

Then, before she could second-guess herself:

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _would you want to see them?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _they’re just flats, most of them are barely more than sketches, they’re not very good or anything but_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I would love that._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I bet they’re amazing._

Rey’s fingers were shaking as she pulled up a few of her better pieces and sent them through. She’d never shown anyone her artwork — well, amend that, anyone other than Ben, and that had been years ago. He’d been so supportive, and they’d spent long nights side-by-side in his study, Ben working on another draft of his novel and Rey’s hands covered in charcoal as she studiously drew his strong profile. 

But Ben was gone, and she hadn’t trusted anyone enough to look at her art since.

At least until…

> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Holy shit, these are fantastic._

Rey’s heart lurched, and she gripped her mug more tightly.

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _really??_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Really. You have a gift. Your figure drawing is impeccable. So are your backgrounds. Just incredible._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _thank you. So much_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _god i was so scared_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i_ _haven’t let anyone see my art in so long_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Why not?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i mean….. I applied to art school right out of high school and got rejected_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _with some strong words from the committee_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _I meant to apply again to a different school but then life happened_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _you kind of know the rest_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _You should apply again. Or at least put out your portfolio. There’s no reason you aren’t working professionally._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _what and serve myself up for round 2 of humiliation? No thanks_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _So, what, you’re saying you haven’t improved since high school?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _of course i have!!_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Then what’s the issue?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _you damn well know_

It was almost frustrating, how much he seemed to believe in her when she could only muster so much for herself. That a total stranger would have more faith in Rey than she did…

Well.

Was he even a total stranger at this point?

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _sorry, i didn’t mean to snap at you_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i just can’t figure you out_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i don’t know what you want from me_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I would love for you to believe that you’re not alone._

What she would give for one morning where Kylo didn’t make her cry. 

(At least he’d followed through and PayPaled her so she could purchase a waterproof eyeliner pen.)

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _you’re not either, you know_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I’ll believe that if you will._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _ha_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _deal_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _…_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _...asshole_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _There’s my girl._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _you wish_

Rey hesitated, glancing at the clock and not quite looking at her phone.

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _ <3 _

_*****_

The city was blanketed with a thick carpet of fluffy, wet snow on Friday, and Rey watched cars skid on the slick roads outside her apartment as she snuggled into her bathrobe. 

Fridays were her day off, which meant that she’d stayed up late the night before and marathoned the next few chapters of “Across the Stars”. Matt had been more or less safe as he’d been taken into alliance custody, as Kylo had promised — Nines had given him a few swift punches to the face, and he’d been given a sentence of hard labour until they could quite decide what to do with him, but even though Kira had appeared conflicted, Matt had taken his preliminary punishment without complaint. 

If the earlier chapters had been something of a whirlwind angsty romance, there was a gravity to the story’s third act that reminded its readers of the stakes. There was an assault on the alliance base, and Matt had fought by Kira’s side, shielding her from missiles and taking a bad hit to his shoulder in the process (it endeared him to Sam and Nines, if slightly). The members of the alliance still didn’t fully trust him, in the same way that Kira still didn’t fully forgive him. But there were signs of growing acceptance, and it almost started to look like there could still be a happy ending, even for Matt and Kira.

Until Chapter 23.

When a specific threat to Kira’s life came from the emperor himself. Matt had woken up beside her in bed, stroked her hair and kissed her, and left to confront his father. 

The chapter ended with Matt riding off and Kira turning over in an empty bed, mumbling something in her sleep. 

Rey was _livid._

And Kylo still hadn’t answered her messages. 

When her phone finally pinged, Rey wrenched it off the coffee table and jabbed at the screen. 

> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Yeah, I probably should have warned you about the cliffhanger._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _MOTHER. FUCKER._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _you are EVIL_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _how could you leave it there?!!_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Because I’m not sure how the story ends yet._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _oh my fucking god_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _I’LL TELL YOU HOW IT ENDS_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _kira finds out and rides off to help matt defeat the emperor_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _matt is cemented as a redeemed hero or what the fuck ever_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _the emperor dies, everyone celebrates_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _matt and kira make out over the ashes of his corpse_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _AND THEN THEY LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _THE_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _FUCKING_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _END_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _you call yourself a mattkira shipper???_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i hate them and even i figured this shit out!!_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _FIX IT_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _WHERE ARE THE NOTES FOR 24_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _if this does not end with matt in kira’s arms i’m suing you_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _If it helps, that was the general reaction when I first posted the chapter._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i am going to haunt Rose for this_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Rose?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _the friend who got me to read this in the first place_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _ha, “friend”_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _she blocked me after I started doing my readthroughs_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _jfc i wish i had her around right now_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i need someone to share my pain who is NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR CAUSING IT_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Is that roseofthegalaxy? She seems really sweet. We’ve talked about the fic a few times over the last week. Now that I’m being “social”._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I’m surprised you were friends with a MattKira, though._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _she’s about as much of a mattkira as I am_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _...so a MattKira shipper, then._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _I DO NOT SHIP THEM_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _You’re threatening me with legal action if Matt and Kira don’t get a happy ending._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I think that ship has sailed._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _F_ _iguratively speaking._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i hate everything_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i hate you. i hate this story. i hate lost galaxy_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _The story’s not over yet._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _might as well be_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _matt’s going to die isn’t he_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _the bad guy always dies_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _He might. There’s always that possibility in war._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i. hate. everything_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _why did we even fucking try this?_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _This?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _trying to do something better_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _the antis are still attacking, mattkiras are still getting hurt_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _and matt is going to die and kira is going to be ALONE_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _and you’re going to finish your story and go back to your side and i’m going to go back to mine_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _You don’t have to. I keep telling you._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _then what’s the way out? What’s the world where matt gets to live and atone for all of his bullshit and kiss kira and build a life AND i get out of this anti hell??_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _because i swear to god kylo if you find me an out i will take it_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I know, sweetheart. I’m trying._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Keep an eye on your messages today. You may get a handhold before you know it._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I’ll talk to you tonight._

*****

Rey spent most of the day curled up in bed, occasionally reaching up to wipe away angry tears. 

Kylo hadn’t messaged her again, and she’d spent the afternoon swapping texts with Finn (apologies for being so scarce at first, but then half-listening to his work stories) and scrolling through Tumblr. The plan was already starting to weaken — drips and drabs were filtering out from the set of the next season, and the rumoured scenes of Matt and Kira together were enough fuel for the fire even with Rey’s “mission” allegedly continuing and Kylo’s event holding strong. 

It felt endless sometimes. Rey’s inbox was full of messages from antis and shippers alike, even though she was on hiatus. Her fellow antis kept cheering her on, and not for the first time she wondered just how bad the fallout would be if they found out what she’d _really_ been up to. 

But those weren’t the messages that were tearing at her. No, that honour went to the messages from shippers. 

Not the ones telling her what a monster she was, those were boilerplate at this stage of her blogging career. 

It was the ones pleading with her, laying out the case for MattKira, asking her to consider all of the supplemental materials and cast interviews that added depth to their dynamic. Some of them weren’t even anonymous, and Rey felt a pang at that, knowing that they’d opened themselves up to harassment just in an attempt to convince her to go a different way. 

The sky was alight with the wash of reds and oranges of a snow-day sunset when she got it. 

It was an anonymous message. Worded well. Perfect grammar and spelling. The tone was polite. 

It was the contents that sent Rey jacknifing up in bed, eyes wide, breathing hard and shaking violently.

_You seem really unhappy. I’m sorry for that. It seems like maybe you’re coming around to MattKira, just a little? I know you’re on hiatus, but those last few readthroughs did seem like you were phoning it in. If you’re willing to be open-minded, I recommend reading Ben Solo’s Lost Galaxy tie-in novel, ‘Shadow and Fate’. I think it might answer a lot of questions. Take care._

...no.

There was no fucking way. 

He couldn’t. 

All of this…

It _couldn’t_ be. 

Her phone pinged, and Rey stared down at the screen with unseeing eyes.

> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Sorry for being out of action today. I got tied up with some publishing stuff. Did you get any interesting messages?_

The phone fell limply from her hand as Rey swung her legs across the bed and stood, nearly falling over as her ankle rolled beneath her and the penny dropped. 

_Speaking of which, your name isn’t Rey, is it?_

Rey reached back for her phone and typed with shaking fingers, feeling her gorge rise, her cheeks flaming crimson.

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _you miserable fucking bastard_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _you ASSHOLE_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _did he put you up to this???_

He knew. 

Whoever he was, he _knew._

> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Wait, what?_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Did you get a message or not?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _I GOT A FUCKING MESSAGE ALL RIGHT_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _DID HE PUT YOU UP TO THIS_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I’m so confused, did who put me up to what?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _BEN FUCKING SOLO_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _DID HE PAY YOU_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _OR ARE YOU JUST ONE OF HIS FUCKING PUBLISHING FRIENDS_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Rey…_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _oh i knew it_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _you fucking knew my name this whole time didn’t you???_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _...not the whole time, no._
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _What did the message say?_

Why was he still playing dumb? She’d _caught_ him. 

Rey muffled a scream into her fist and threw a pillow clear across the room. After all this time… when she’d almost started to _care_ about…

What kind of sadistic game was this?

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _like you don’t know_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _but HERE_

She took a quick screenshot of the anonymous message, feeling her stomach turn as she did, and sent it through. 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _NO ONE knows who i am on here_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _so it’s real fucking convenient_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _that you know my name_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _you clearly work in publishing_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _and you tell me to look out for a goddamn message_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _and i get one talking about my FUCKING EX-FIANCE and his book that same. fucking. afternoon_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Rey, please listen to me._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _don’t you fucking say my name, i swear to god_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i CARED about you, motherfucker_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _you made me….. FUCK_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _are you working for him or not???_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I’m not working for anyone. I’m exceptionally confused right now. I did not send you that message._

Rey stifled a bitter laugh, folding her bottom lip in against her teeth. 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _do you think i’m stupid???_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Far from it._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _so do you know ben solo or don’t you???_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _I… of course I do?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _so what’s your fucking angle here??_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _let me guess, saving up receipts to show all the fucking mattkiras that oh look we got one of the antis onboard with our filth??_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _or are you just going for straight-up doxxing? let me send you my address myself and save you the fucking time_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _what’s his game here? did he even tell you who i was before he put you up to it??_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Rey…_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Did you… not know? This whole time?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _KNOW WHAT_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i’m giving you ten seconds to give me your sob story before i block your ass_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _and you and ben can have a good fucking laugh about how he got rey good AGAIN_
> 
> **_thekyloren:_ ** _For Christ’s sake, Rey, I AM BEN._

Everything went white.

*****

\- _Finn please tell me you and Poe are home_

_\- Rey? We’re on our way to dinner, what’s wrong?_

_\- I’m coming over. Now._

_*****_

> **_thekyloren:_ ** _Rey, I am so fucking sorry. I swear to God I thought you knew._
> 
> **_This Tumblr can’t receive messages._**

*****

_Delete “Tumblr”?_

_Deleting this app will also delete its data._

_DELETE._

*****

> _**roseofthegalaxy:** hey girl _
> 
> _**roseofthegalaxy:** i know it’s been awhile _
> 
> _**roseofthegalaxy:** i meant to message you earlier but i got tied up with this story i’m writing _
> 
> _**roseofthegalaxy:** i’m writing mattkira, can you believe it? i guess i really did fall down the rabbit hole lol _
> 
> _**roseofthegalaxy:** look… KyloRen messaged me this morning _
> 
> _**roseofthegalaxy:** he begged me to talk to you. said you’re really trying to get out of the whole anti thing and could use a friend to hold your hand through it _
> 
> _**roseofthegalaxy:** damn near fell out of my chair when i read the message, it was REALLY sweet _
> 
> _**roseofthegalaxy:** but even though i blocked you for my own mental health ive kept an eye on you and i get why hes worried _
> 
> _**roseofthegalaxy:** so you’re unblocked, and if you want to talk….. im here for you _
> 
> _**roseofthegalaxy:** are you there? _


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I need to explain a few things.
> 
> \- The chapter count has increased to 11. This is because this chapter was not supposed to be quite like this. We'll be finishing on February 18th now, although I might surprise myself and try to eke out a double update for Valentine's Day to end on-schedule. 
> 
> \- This chapter is an intermission from the plot, which will continue in Chapter 8. I weighed whether or not it was necessary, but Rey and Ben decided they wanted to tell their story. 
> 
> \- That story turned into 7500 words of flashbacks. I am very, very sorry. 
> 
> \- There is (hopefully) the beginning of an answer to why Ben thought Rey would realise it was him in Chapter 6. He'll have a chance to explain himself properly soon. 
> 
> \- Those of you who follow me on Twitter (enemiestolover1) know that I weighed having a double update today. This chapter turned out to be so emotionally draining that I decided it would be in everyone's best interest to let it settle for a few days before continuing the story. 
> 
> \- I promise this has a happy ending. I PROMISE.

**_These are the things Rey did not want to remember._ **

**_These are the things she could never forget._ **

**_*****_ **

**_May 4, 2013_ **

**_*****_ **

It was a warm May night a few weeks after Rey’s nineteenth birthday when she first met Ben, and she was on the verge of tears over a bag of potatoes and drenched in champagne. 

None of it was her fault, not really. She wasn’t even supposed to be working at the swanky publishing industry event, but the catering company Finn worked for part-time had seen its available staff cut in half by a nasty stomach bug (not from the food, the owners had assured the event organisers, but with two days left before the gala and their first-choice caterers dropping out last-minute it wasn’t like they had all that many options). 

And so after a few rounds of Finn’s desperate begging, Rey, who had zero food service experience and even less experience with high-society types, had found herself in the ballroom of the local convention centre wearing a white dress shirt, cheap black polyester trousers, and, in the greatest indignity of all, a black bow tie. 

(“I look like a penguin,” she’d groused as Finn straightened her tie for the third time. 

“It suits you,” he’d said, but he couldn’t quite look her in the eye or keep his lips from twitching into a smile. She punched him in the arm.)

There were warning signs that things were about to go south early on in the evening. Finn started floundering at the bar within ten minutes as he realised that the organisers had neglected to include scotch (at a publishing event, no less), the audio techs got their wires crossed and sent a full minute of ear-splitting feedback screeching through the ballroom right as the gala chair stood up to speak, and Rey accidentally tried to go the wrong way through the kitchen traffic doors and took a swinging door to the face for her troubles. 

“You look like you’re having about as much fun as I am,” a young man remarked in a deep voice when she came by his table, rubbing her forehead irritably with one hand and carrying a tray of champagne flutes in the other. He plucked one from the tray and downed its contents in a single gulp before offering her a sympathetic smirk, a touch of something conciliatory in his dark eyes. “First time at an industry gala?” 

“First and last, with any luck,” Rey groused. Her ten-minute “orientation” with Jess in the kitchen had emphasised smiling and playing nice with the guests, but she was already over the whole thing. If Finn hadn’t promised her a full day’s pay for four hours’ work, she would have already turned in her bow tie and caught the first bus home.

“I hear you,” the man said, reaching for another flute. “These things are dull as hell at the best of times, which this definitely isn’t. And it looks like they’re still cheaping out on the…” 

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion then. 

The man reaching for the champagne.

Rey’s foot catching on a thick A/V wire running beside the table, causing her to look down to try and regain her balance.

A rotund older gentleman at the next table groaning and pushing his chair back, impacting with the backs of Rey’s legs. 

Eight full champagne flutes tilting and tumbling half onto the young man in front of her, then onto Rey herself as she frantically pulled them back and only succeeded in drenching the front of her shirt. 

And, worst of all, the sudden silence in the ballroom as the flutes fell and shattered on the hardwood in a shower of broken glass.

The young man’s hand was still outstretched, and he blinked at her, champagne dripping from the ends of his dark hair and onto his crisp white shirt. “...cheaping out on the champagne,” he finished mildly, glancing down at his shirt. “Well, at least it wasn’t the good stuff.”

“...oh my God. Oh my _God_.” Rey grabbed a linen napkin off the table and reached out to dab at his shirt, before realising that oh _fuck_ she was rubbing at his _pecs_ and flailing out with one hand to thrust the napkin at him. “Oh my God, I am so sorry, I’m…”

“It’s okay, really. At least it wasn’t red. And it gives me an excuse to get out of here and get changed.” The man glanced at Rey’s shirt, his cheeks flushing, and Rey followed his gaze only to realise, to her total mortification, that it was soaked through and _of course_ she’d worn the polka-dot bra today of all days…

“Um, here,” the man offered awkwardly, reaching to the back of his chair and retrieving the tuxedo jacket draped across it. He stood, and Rey’s eyes widened even further as she stared up at the tall expanse of him. “There you go,” he said, draping the jacket around her shoulders. It was almost comically large on her, and Rey clasped the lapels together at her front with a white-knuckled hand. “Until you can get into something dry.” 

His cheeks were still red, and Rey could feel her own burning as his hands lingered on her shoulders. 

“Rey!” 

She didn’t even have time to thank him before she was being dragged off to the kitchen by a furious Jess, maintenance workers glaring daggers at Rey as they rushed to clean up the broken glass. 

The man watched her go, leaning against his chair and staring after her with those dark puppy-dog eyes, and Rey waved weakly at him. 

“I have had enough disasters tonight without you spilling drinks on the guests!” Jess said between gritted teeth as she hauled Rey into the kitchen. 

“He didn’t seem to mind too much...” Rey began, falling silent at Jess’s sharp glare.

“Yo, Jess,” a burly prep cook ventured, glancing back to the rest of his team, “we have a big problem.” 

“Oh for the love of… what _now?_ ” 

“Did you need potatoes for the menu?”

Jess stopped and stared at him, and Rey could feel the hand clutching her forearm begin to shake. “Yes,” she said, voice deceptively calm. “Yes, Snap. There are four different potato dishes on the menu. Which you should have read by now, since dinner service is starting in _less than an hour._ And if you are about to tell me that we do not, in fact, have potatoes, I am going to stick your head in the deep fryer, and no jury will convict me.”

“Oh, we’ve got plenty of potatoes.” 

“Then what is the—”

“They’re just. Um. Not peeled.” He put his hands up in a defensive gesture at the look in Jess’s eyes. “Look, it was an honest mistake. We had a shift change, what with the short staff and all, and no one was sure whose job it was so it just… kind of… didn’t get done…” 

Fortunately for everyone involved, Jess’s infuriated screaming from the kitchen coincided with another round of piercing feedback. 

“You.” Jess wheeled around and grabbed Rey by her shoulders. “ _You._ Are going. _To fix this._ ” 

Which was how Rey found herself in the back of the kitchen, biting back tears and slicing into a Yukon Gold with deft strokes of the peeler in her hand. She’d angrily ripped off her stupid fucking bow tie, but her shirt was still damp and sticking to her, and every time she inhaled she caught a whiff of stale, cheap champagne. 

She hated alcohol. Always had, ever since the last few precious memories of her parents before she’d been made a ward of the state at six years old remained wrapped in cigarette smoke and beer vomit. And, God, now she reeked of it, and was this some kind of awful omen, that she was headed down the same dead-end path, with nothing ahead to...

“Sir!” One of the waiters’ frantic voices sounded from near the traffic doors as they opened with a pronounced sound of impact _._ “Sir, this is the kitchen, you can’t go back there!”

“Yeah, I can.” 

That same deep voice from earlier, utterly unconcerned, and Rey looked up to see the young man, now dressed in a simple dress shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows and a pair of dark jeans striding into the kitchen, making a beeline for where she sat on an overturned crate next to a giant bag of potatoes. 

His eyes were dark and intent on her, and Rey flushed, mortified as she realised she was still wearing his jacket around her shoulders. “I’m sorry,” she began awkwardly, “did you want this back or…” 

She stared at him in confusion as he surveyed the kitchen, found a folding chair, and dragged it to a spot across from her before grabbing a passing prep cook by the arm. 

“Find me a potato peeler. A paring knife’ll do if you don’t have a second,” he said. His tone was sharp, business-like, and the cook stared at him for a second before shrugging and slapping a knife into his outstretched hand. 

The man nodded in apparent satisfaction and reached for a potato, peeling at the skin over the bucket between himself and Rey without a word. 

“I…” Rey stared at him in abject confusion, stopping mid-peel. “What are you doing?”

“Peeling potatoes,” he said simply, not looking at her as he made quick work of the first potato and set it into the tall pot beside her. “It sounded like you could use another pair of hands, judging from the screams and curses, anyway.” 

“But…” Rey gestured helplessly towards the kitchen doors with her peeler, then back to him. “Aren’t you attending this thing?”

“Sure am. How many pounds?”

“I… what?”

“Sixty? Eighty? How many bags do you have there?”

Rey glanced at the stack and counted. “Um, seven. Twenty pounds each.” 

He shrugged. “We can make a good head start as long as they’re not planning to do anything ridiculous with them. They announced food service would start in a little less than hour. You can do a million things with potatoes in forty-five minutes. Here.” He took the half-peeled potato from her hands and quickly finished it off, reaching with another (large, she realised, my goodness did he have big hands) hand into the nearby sack and extracting two. He tossed one to her and started on the second. “Mashed, mostly. But who doesn’t love mashed potatoes?”

Rey was still staring at him, but she started to peel with unsure strokes as he raised an eyebrow at her. “I… sorry, I just have no idea what’s happening right now.” 

“We’re peeling potatoes,” he said with a light shrug, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. 

“I mean… _I’m_ peeling potatoes. I’m supposed to be, anyway. What I’m lost on is why _you_ are helping, um…” She hesitated. “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.” 

“And I don’t know yours. See, we match.” He grinned at her. His eyeteeth were slightly crooked, and it was almost charming. “Well, while we’re working through an ungodly amount of potatoes, I guess we can be anyone we want to be. So what’s your name?”

Rey gave him a weak smile despite herself, depositing another peeled potato into the pot. “Kira,” she said, the first name that came to mind.

The man’s smile widened. “Like in _Lost Galaxy?_ ” 

Rey instantly brightened. “You watch _Lost Galaxy?_ ” 

“Of course. They’ve just had the first season so far but it’s really good.” 

“I know!” Rey’s eyes were alight, and she leaned forward a fraction. “The visuals are great, and the characters, and the storytelling…” 

Before Rey knew it, they were sitting knee-to-knee, making quick work of the sacks of potatoes and talking at length about _Lost Galaxy._

(Jess shot her a few strange looks when she came to retrieve the peeled potatoes, but the kitchen was in such disarray that there was no time to worry about Rey’s bizarre sci-fi tete-a-tete with a gala attendee over a mountain of potato peelings.) 

“I wonder what they’re going to do with Matt,” the man said, reaching over to open the last bag. 

Rey scoffed, catching the potato he tossed to her. “What do you mean, what they’re going to do with him? He’s evil. Kira and the alliance are going to fight him.”

“Yeah, but I’m looking it as a writer, and...”

“Oh, I am so sorry, I didn’t realise you were a _writer._ Forgive me for not recognising your intellectual superiority.” Rey rolled her eyes and ducked as the man tossed a scrap of potato peel at her. But he was grinning, and so was she. 

“Anyway,” he said meaningfully, “you didn’t think he looked kind of broken up in the season finale, when he fought his mother’s people?”

“Yeah, he was broken up because he got an arrow through the chest. Tends to put a bit of a damper on one’s day, that.” 

“Hm. Maybe.” The man shrugged. “I think it’s going to be an interesting arc either way.”

The last bag of potatoes was the smallest, and Rey was surprised to feel her heart sink as they finished and the man wiped his hands off on his jeans and stood. “Wait,” Rey said, before she could think. “Um…”

The man stared at her and raised an eyebrow in an unspoken question.

“Thank you,” she said in a rush, half-stumbling over the crate as she stood and held his jacket out to him. “I… this was fun. Really.” 

He gave her a lopsided grin. “You enjoyed talking to some weird guy about sci-fi while peeling a small country’s worth of potatoes?” 

“You know what? Yeah,” she said with a small smile. “Yeah, I did.” 

“Well then. Um.” He hesitated before reaching into the pocket of the offered jacket and extracting a rectangular piece of paper. 

Rey laughed despite herself, staring at him in disbelief. “Are you seriously giving me your _card_ right now?”

The man’s face fell, and Rey touched his wrist in apology even as she stifled another laugh. “Men, I swear. Wait here for a second. Snap!” she yelled to the line. “Toss me a pen!”

The cook was alternating between three dishes but cursed and extracted a pen from his apron pocket and threw it Rey’s way without looking. She caught it and plucked the card from the man’s fingertips, turning it over and slapping it into his palm before scribbling her phone number on the back. 

“I can’t believe you were trying to ask me out by giving me your business card,” she said in disbelief. “Very smooth. What’s your version of a marriage proposal look like, handing over your CV and three references?” 

He was blushing again, and it was significantly more adorable than it had any right to be on a man his size. “I’ll try to do better next time…” He glanced down at the card. “...Rey. I’m Ben, by the way.” 

“Ben…”

“Solo.” He jerked his thumb towards the ballroom. “My parents own Organa Publishing. Hope that doesn’t scare you.”

“Oh yeah, you’re terrifying.” And, okay, objectively he _was_ intimidating, with his dark eyes and dark hair and broad shoulders and good _lord_ was he tall. 

But he had also responded to having a tray of drinks spilled on him by a hapless stopgap waitress by giving her his jacket, helping her peel potatoes, and geeking out with her about her favourite show. 

So maybe it was worth being a little scared, just this once.

*********

**_May 25, 2013_ **

*********

“Excuse me, is this seat taken?” 

Rey glanced over her menu as she sat on the small cobblestone terrace of a quaint sidewalk cafe, smirking as the man sat down across from her without waiting for an answer. “Hi,” she said mildly. “I’m Ursula. Sea witch. Just traded in my tentacles for a set of legs and thought I’d check out this seafood joint for kicks. Hoping I’ll see someone who annoyed me on the specials list. You?”

“Captain Ahab,” he said, ignoring the waiter’s confused look as he handed him a menu. “Just in from a really frustrating game of chicken with a whale. Turned out the bastard was some kind of symbolic allegory the whole time. Wasted a perfectly good epic death scene for nothing.” 

“That sucks,” Rey offered sympathetically. “At least you didn’t get harpooned.” 

“Well, I was trying to do the harpooning.” 

“With a whale? Sexy.” 

“What can I say, I’ve got a thing for blowholes.” 

Rey choked as she took a sip of her water, narrowing her eyes at the man’s insufferably smug grin. “Fine,” she groused, wiping at her mouth with her napkin. “You win this one.” 

The man — Ben — extracted his phone from his pocket and made a note. “2-1, Solo,” he observed. “Game, set, match.” 

“I want a rematch.” 

“We’ll have to go best of seven. And you’ll still break first.” 

It had become a bizarre game of theirs, something that Ben had started on their first outing after she’d enjoyed her run as “Kira” that night of the publishing gala: they’d show up at whatever restaurant the other had picked, make up some outlandish identity, and see who could last the longest without laughing, breaking character, or otherwise expressing some kind of exasperation. 

Ben had won today, and the first time, when he’d made it all the way to dessert without once wavering in his Inspector Clouseau impersonation and Rey had finally given in just to get him to stop.

Rey had pulled out a narrow victory on the second date with her Jessica Rabbit, only because, after much arguing, he’d begrudgingly agreed that his flushed stammering counted as a loss. 

(She’d filed that one away for later, just in case this turned into something. Not that she was expecting it to, she’d never even had a steady boyfriend, nor had she wanted one. But, well… this was fun, if nothing else.) 

“I’m okay with taking this thing to seven,” Rey said, grinning at him over her water glass.  
  
Ben reached out his glass and gently clinked it with hers. “You’re on,” he said. 

*********

**_July 1, 2013_ **

**_*****_ **

_\- am i ugly_

Rey stared down at her phone, biting her lip and deleting the message before she could send it to Finn. 

_\- is there something wrong with me_

_\- like am i gross or do i smell weird or do i have skinny elbows or something_

_\- oh god do i have bad breath, if i do and you haven’t told me all this time…._

Delete. Delete. Delete.

Rey groaned and fell back onto the heaped pile of clothes on her bed. Ben would be at her apartment to pick her up in ten minutes, and she was about to scream in frustration. 

He still hadn’t kissed her. Not once. 

They’d spent every weekend together since the night of the publishing gala. They’d been to dinner, to the movies, to half the museums in the city. They’d even spent one disastrous afternoon at the zoo where the giraffes had gotten frisky and Ben had nearly choked on a soft pretzel at the sight of their extremely... _vertical_ coupling. 

(Rey had never imagined she could be jealous of a fucking giraffe.)

(...literally.)

They were both still listed as single on Facebook. They didn’t hold hands. They’d cuddled on the couch one time, when she’d come over to his ridiculously well-appointed apartment, but only because the air-conditioning had been stuck at 15C and Ben had apologised and said he had already called the super, and Rey was so cold that she’d all but insisted on being wrapped up under a blanket with him. 

But even then, Ben had tried to keep several inches between them, and she could swear she saw a muscle twitching in his jaw as they watched _CSI._

“Maybe he’s just in it to be friends,” Finn had shrugged when she’d told him about the not-quite cuddle catastrophe, and she’d nearly thrown a pillow at him. 

But it was starting to look like he was right. 

Rey sighed and glanced at her bed, to the various outfits she’d tried on and rejected, finally settling on a pair of jeans and an oversized sweatshirt.

Fuck it. If this whole thing was platonic, she might as well be comfortable. 

Rey was still sulking when Ben pulled up beside the curb in the Falcon, the was-once-almost-white-probably ‘77 Firebird he’d purchased off his father when he’d turned eighteen back in 2006. 

(Although, to hear Ben tell it, his mother had all but had to pry the keys out of his father’s hands, and he still insisted on checking under the hood every time Ben visited his parents, “just to make sure you’re taking care of my best girl”. Rey was sure his mother must have loved that.)

“You look… comfortable,” Ben said, raising his eyebrows as Rey opened the door and sat down in the passenger seat. 

“I didn’t know the Cineplex had a dress code,” she said flatly, fastening her seatbelt and slumping down, crossing her arms over her chest.

Ben eyed her curiously. “Are you…” He swore as his phone rang from its place in the center console, and he put the Falcon in park. “Yeah, ma,” he said, answering. He paused. “No, I’m just going to the movies with a friend, I can swing by after to check on that copy.”

 _Friend._ Rey crossed her arms tighter and glared out the windshield. 

She didn’t stop glaring as they drove to the theatre, as Ben bought an extra-large bucket of popcorn and handed her the whole thing, as they sat through the previews before _Man of Steel._

“Are you okay?” he finally asked, leaning over, a flicker of hurt flashing across his features as Rey thumped the popcorn bucket between them.

“Perfect. Fine. _Platonically awesome,_ ” she said, not looking at him. 

She barely even watched the movie. 

Judging by how she could see Ben glancing to her every five minutes, she wasn’t sure he did, either.

“I think I’m going to catch the bus home,” Rey said as they left the theatre. It had been a late showing, and there were only a few straggling patrons making their way out to the parking lot. 

Ben stopped and stared at her, his keys in his hand. “I don’t mind taking you home,” he said carefully.

“Wouldn’t want to inconvenience you or anything,” Rey muttered. She turned away from him, eyes widening as Ben moved and blocked her path. “Move,” she said, gritting her teeth.

“No,” Ben said, and his voice was deep and dark. “Rey, what’s going on?”

Rey shrugged lightly, shoving her hands into her pockets. “Nothing,” she said, attempting to keep her voice steady. “We’re friends. Just friends. This is fine. Totally fine.”

It wasn’t fine. 

But what choice did she have? 

She swallowed and stared up at Ben, and her brow furrowed at the abject confusion on his face.

“I… what.” He shook his head, staring at her. “What.” 

Rey dug her hands deeper into her pockets. “I mean, I get it,” she said. “It happens. We decided we’re better as friends at some point. It’s fine.” 

“When did we…” Ben blinked, gesturing helplessly. “Rey, I thought that you…” He cursed and ran a hand through his hair. “Rey, I thought _you_ wanted to keep things platonic. I didn’t want to push you into anything. But every time I’m with you, it gets harder and harder to…” He fell silent, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

So he…

Was he saying…

This _whole fucking time…_

“So I’m not gross?” Rey blurted out, and she suppressed the urge to slap her hand to her forehead in embarrassment. 

Her breath caught in her throat as Ben’s large hands framed her face, his dark eyes staring down into hers, and before she knew it she was on her tiptoes, wrapped in his arms as he drew her into a passionate kiss. 

Rey’s head was spinning as he released her, keeping her cuddled to his chest even as his cheeks flushed when someone whistled from the far side of the parking lot. 

“Not gross,” he confirmed. “Not even close.” 

Rey barely stopped grinning long enough to let him kiss her again.

*********

**_August 30, 2013_ **

*********

“Easy. Easy now.” Ben was pressing kisses to her throat, stroking the back of her neck with clever fingertips as Rey trembled beneath him and clutched at his back. 

“I’ve never done this,” Rey breathed, and there were tears in her eyes as Ben pushed into her slowly. “Ben…” 

“I haven’t either.” His voice sounded strange, choked, and Rey reached up to stroke his hair from his brow. “I never…” He closed his eyes and dropped his head to her shoulder. “God, I don’t deserve you, Rey.” 

“You do.” She tugged him up to kiss her, sliding her tongue into his mouth as he pressed deeper into her. “Oh God, you do, Ben, I’ve wanted you for so long,” she said, breath catching as he tilted his hips and was suddenly seated fully within her, a deep fullness that she didn’t have words for. “ _Ben._ ” 

His eyes were wet as he slipped one hand to cradle the small of her back, rocking into her with gentle motions. 

When Rey came for the first time, all in a rush, they were both crying. Ben stroked her hair. 

He didn’t say the words, but she could almost imagine that he might have. 

*********

**_December 31, 2013_ **

*********

Rey’s cheeks were burning as midnight struck and Ben’s father dipped his mother in the middle of the raucous party, drawing her into a sloppy kiss as she laughed and slapped his shoulder.

“Christ, they’re mortifying,” Ben muttered at her shoulder, sipping at his champagne before grinning as Rey pulled him down and kissed him for good measure. 

The house was too large and too festive and there were far too many people, but it was _family._ Ben’s father had flirted outrageously with Rey, grinning as his son fumed, and his mother had drawn her into a warm hug and introduced her with great dignity to the ancient Saint Bernard who padded out of his crate to drool on Rey’s shoes before falling asleep in the middle of the living room and snoring loud enough to wake the dead.

“They’re perfect,” Rey said, wrapping her arms around Ben’s waist and smiling up at him.

All of it was.

*********

**_April 10, 2014_ **

**_*****_ **

“I think I’m dying,” Rey muttered into the pillow she’d laid over her face. 

“You have a cold,” Ben said matter-of-factly, sitting on the edge of her bed and pulling the pillow away. Rey glared at him, but her gaze softened when she saw the tray of soup, crackers, and high-end chocolate he’d placed next to her. 

“I can’t taste that stuff right now,” she said, groaning as she sat up and leaned against the headboard. 

Ben settled the tray across her legs. “It’s still your birthday. It’s the least I could do.” 

“I’ll say.” She managed a weak grin at him as she slurped her soup. “What are you going to do about the party? I was looking forward to Finn making you wear one of those ridiculous hats.” 

“I’ll pick one up and wear it just for you.” He leaned over and kissed her clammy forehead. 

“Ugh, don’t, I’m gross.” 

“You’re beautiful.” 

Rey leveled him with a flat stare. She had only caught glimpses of herself in the bathroom mirror as she’d shuffled into it over the last few days, but she objectively looked like death. “You’ll get sick,” she pointed out. 

Ben shrugged. “Occupational hazard. Do you need anything else?” He took the tray away as she weakly shook her head, but he didn’t move, stroking the soft skin at the inside of her wrist. 

Maybe it was the heavy cold medicine coursing through her veins. She did feel loopy as hell as she fell back against the pillows and stared up at him with a dopey smile. 

But it was also just… honest, and very overdue. 

“I love you,” Rey said simply. 

“I know,” Ben said, taking her hand between his and kissing her knuckles. “Love you too.” 

“Even when I’m gross?”

“Even when you’re gross.” 

“I’m going to hold you to that when I get something that makes me puke everywhere, you know.”

“Duly noted.”

*********

**_November 19, 2014_ **

**_*****_ **

“I like the TV against this wall.” 

“But then the couch is in a weird position.” 

“Does it matter?”

“If you want to watch TV, yeah, it does.” 

Rey huffed and pushed the TV stand into Ben’s preferred position, framing the space with her fingers and closing one eye. 

“Admit it, it looks better there.” Ben had a smear of paint on his cheek, and his hair was damp with sweat, but he was still smiling. 

It had been her early birthday present to him. To them both. 

A lease with both their names on it. 

“Fine,” Rey groused, leaning into his side as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Just because it’s your birthday.” 

“I appreciate your generosity. Especially considering you made the master bathroom look like a greenhouse exploded in it.” 

“Plants are fashionable _and_ excellent for mental health, Ben.” 

“I don’t want a succulent in the bath with me, Rey.”

“What if it’s me _holding_ a succulent?”

“...you have my attention.”

*********

**_May 18, 2015_ **

*********

Rey set the last page down, exhaling slowly. “Wow.” 

Ben fidgeted from his spot beneath her, Rey draped across his lap. “Good?”

“Really good.” She half-turned to kiss him, nuzzling in against his freshly-shaven cheek. “I could never have the patience to write a whole novel.” 

“Mm.” He tightened his arm around her and dropped a kiss to her forehead. “I’ve been working on it for awhile.” 

“Have you talked to your mother about getting it published?” 

Ben frowned. “I don’t want to get caught in that shadow,” he murmured. “I’ve been trying to break out of my family’s legacy ever since I was a kid.” 

“At least you have a legacy to try to get out from under.” It sounded more bitter than she intended it to, and Rey pursed her lips. “Sorry.” 

She let Ben gather her to his chest and snuggled in against him. “So you’ll forge your own path,” he said, shrugging lightly. “We both will.” 

He was hesitating, and Rey pulled back to stare at him. “What is it?”

Ben’s left eye twitched the way it did when she knew he was holding back on something. “ _Ben._ ” 

“I was just…” His eyes darted to the table by the front entryway. “You got some art school brochures in the mail today.” 

Rey’s jaw tightened, and she pulled out of his embrace. “Ben…” 

“Just a few, it’s not like it’s…”

“I’m not ready,” she said bluntly. 

“Well I’m not ready to start querying my novel and you keep pushing that.” He ran a hand through his hair in frustration and pushed the stack of paper on the coffee table further away. 

They sat in silence for a moment before Ben sighed and leaned over, dropping his head to her shoulder. Rey carded her fingers through his hair. 

“We’ll both get there,” she murmured. “One day.”

*********

**_November 14, 2016_ **

*********

\- _Plans still on for the cradle-robber’s birthday party this weekend?_

Rey rolled her eyes as she tapped a terse response to Finn. Three and a half years and he was still salty about the age difference thing. 

\- _YES and don’t be an asshole about it_

_\- He’s 40, right? Want to make sure I’m getting the right card_

_\- 28, also the number of times I am going to smack you if you make one more smartass remark about it_

_\- Okay, okay, mea culpa. 3:30 at Bernardi’s?_

_\- Yep. See you there. Is the new guy coming?_

_\- Who, Poe? Probably not, I don’t think it’s going to turn into anything_

Rey nodded as she took a bite out of her bánh mì. Her eyes narrowed slightly as she noticed Ben on his phone at the far end of the kitchen, one arm wrapped around himself and his shoulders hunched as he talked in hushed tones. 

Probably that agent again. He’d been aggressively pursuing Ben for the last six months, even showing up at their apartment twice. 

He unsettled Rey. His eyes were icy-blue and set far apart, and he blinked so rarely that it was disconcerting. He could have been anywhere between fifty and ninety, and his voice was soft and measured in a way that set her teeth on edge for a reason she couldn’t quite identify. 

“Snoke again?” Rey asked, frowning as Ben came back into the living room, staring down at his phone. 

Ben nodded, not looking at her. “He’s driving a hard bargain. He’s promising Guild-covered work if I take the offer and head to L.A. On top of the 12.5 percent. Agents never take that small a cut.” 

“I don’t trust him,” Rey said bluntly. She set her lunch down and stood, laying her hand over Ben’s. “What does your mother think?”

“I haven’t told her.” 

Rey exhaled on an irritated huff. “Why not? She knows almost every agent in the business. She’d know if he was someone worth trusting your career to.” 

Ben was quiet, and Rey frowned as she reached up and cradled his cheek in her hand. He still didn’t look at her, and Rey’s brow furrowed as he gently pulled her hand away. “I have to do some thinking,” he said. He hesitated before leaning down to give her a quick kiss on the forehead, but it felt perfunctory, and Rey’s heart sank. “I’ll be in the study.” 

She watched him walk away, and for the first time since she could remember, she didn’t follow.

*********

**_December 31, 2016_ **

*********

“We _always_ go to your parents’ for New Years, Benjamin!” 

“I’m not stopping you, am I?” He slammed his laptop shut and spun in his chair to glare at her. “This contract is really involved, Rey, and Snoke wants a decision before the end of February.” 

“You can’t stop for one night? Or, I’m sorry, is checking to see how that fucking creep is trying to trap you _two months from now_ more important than your family?” Rey was leaning up against the far wall, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. 

“This is a gamechanger for both of us,” Ben said through gritted teeth. “I’m fighting to bring you with me.” 

Rey’s arms dropped limply to her sides, something cold and awful in her chest. “I wasn’t aware that was up for negotiation,” she said, and her voice sounded strange even to her own ears. 

“It’s not,” Ben said, and his eyes softened as he stood and reached for her.

Rey hesitated but let him draw her into a loose embrace. “I don’t want to lose you,” she murmured, closing her eyes and swallowing as she burrowed into the front of his sweater. “Ben, I’ve lost so many people over the years…”

“You’re never losing me,” Ben said fiercely, holding her tighter. “Never.” 

He’d kissed her then, and it was desperate, frenzied, the way it hadn’t been since those early days, and before Rey knew it they were in bed together, her pajama pants pulled down, Ben’s jeans pushed past his hips as he thrust into her, one arm tight across her chest, his tears damp against the back of her neck. 

*********

**_January 10, 2017_ **

*********

“Rey.” 

Rey burrowed more deeply into the blankets on their bed, keeping her back to him. 

“Rey. Sweetheart.” 

“Go away,” she said, her voice rough with unshed tears.

“I’m not going without you.” 

“But you’re going.” 

Ben hesitated, and she screwed her eyes shut and pressed her cheek to the pillow.

“I want a life with you,” she heard him say. “I want to be able to give you everything you deserve, I want to see you in my bed every night for the rest of my life. I love you, Rey.” 

Rey rolled over, opening her eyes and staring at him in confusion. 

He was kneeling beside the bed, a small velvet box lying open on the duvet. His eyes were soft, that same puppy-dog look she’d fallen in love with before she’d even known it, that night at the gala when they’d both been damp with champagne and he’d draped his jacket around her shoulders.

“You’re an idiot, Ben Solo,” she said, hiccuping and finally starting to cry as he slid the ring onto her finger and gathered her up in his arms, kissing her fiercely. 

They’d make it work.

Somehow, they’d make it work.

*********

**_January 21, 2017_ **

*********

Ben looked like hell. 

Rey was sure she didn’t look much better.

“I can’t believe you’re letting him get away with this,” she said. Her left hand was tight around the handle of her suitcase, and the sapphire on her ring finger glinted in the lamp light. 

“I’m playing by his rules,” Ben said. “He’s never been married, he thinks it would be a distraction…”

“He _hates_ me,” Rey seethed. “And you’re not even defending me. Defending _us._ ” 

“What do you want me to do?” Ben exploded, grabbing the lamp and slamming it against the far wall, wincing as Rey flinched. “I’ve been querying for fucking _years,_ Rey. Snoke is offering me _everything._ ”

Rey shook her head, laughing in disbelief. Her eyes were burning. “We were everything, once.” 

“We still are.” He was desperate, reaching for her, hurt flashing across his face as Rey pulled away. “Rey, I meant what I said, I’m not going without you. We’re doing this together.” 

“I don’t _want_ to do this!” Rey yelled back at him, edging closer to the door. “You never even asked me! You just assumed that because it was what you wanted that it was what I wanted, too!” She bit back a sob, closing her eyes. “Ben, I’ve built a _life_ here. You’re asking me to throw that away and you _don’t even care._ ” 

His jaw was tight, shoulders trembling in anger, but he didn’t stop her as she opened the door and started to back through it. 

“I’ll be at Finn’s,” Rey said, and her voice was strangled. 

“He gave me until the 24th,” Ben responded, not looking at her. “It’s all over after that.” 

“Then you’d better think about what you want,” Rey said. 

She didn’t look back as she closed the door behind her.

*********

**_January 24, 2017_ **

*********

“You came.” 

Ben’s voice was soft, and his dark hair was damp with clinging snowflakes as he stood beside the ramp to Snoke’s Gulfstream. 

“You don’t have to do this.” Rey took a step towards him, her eyes pleading. "Ben, please don't go this way."

“You can still leave. Come with me.” Ben gestured to the city skyline behind them. “Leave all of this and start something new together.” 

Rey’s chest felt like it was caving in, but she held herself steady. “He’s going to break you, Ben,” she said. “He’s going to use you and chew you up and throw you away when he’s done.” 

“He’s going to give me everything,” Ben countered. 

He hesitated, his gaze dropping to Rey’s left hand, and he closed his eyes for a moment. 

Rey swallowed hard and started to pull the ring from her finger, but Ben held up one hand, shaking his head. 

“Keep it,” he said roughly. “So you… so you don’t forget.” 

“I’m going to try,” Rey said bluntly, even as she felt the hot burn of tears against her cheeks. “I’m going to do everything I can to pretend I never met you, Ben Solo. I wish I never had.” 

He flinched, and some part of her was glad for it. “Do you even realise what you’re throwing away?” he asked. 

“Maybe one day you will,” Rey said. 

They stared at each other for a long moment across the tarmac. 

Distantly, she heard the pilot calling Ben’s name. 

“Stay with me,” Rey tried one last time. “Walk away from this.” 

He didn’t look at her. 

She took a deep breath, and when she exhaled he finally looked her in the eye. 

“I love you, Rey,” Ben said simply. He didn’t bother to wipe the tears from his cheeks. 

“I know,” she said. She bit her lip and swallowed back the sob that threatened to burst from her chest. “Goodbye, Ben.” 

She could swear she heard him fall to his knees on the tarmac as she turned and walked away. 

She didn’t cry. 

*********

**_January 25, 2017_ **

*********

“You’re sure you don’t want to keep your old number?” Finn asked, cradling the iPhone box in his hands as Rey stared down at the inset instructions. “Just in case h…” 

“No,” Rey said shortly. “How soon can you get me on the lease?”

“March, but you’re welcome to stay in the spare room until you…” 

“I’ll bring my stuff over tomorrow.” 

When she looked up at him, her eyes were dry, and hard.

*********

**_March 10, 2017_ **

*********

“So how are you coping with everything?” Maz asked her mildly. 

Rey clutched the pillow between her hands, staring at a point on the wall just past Maz’s shoulder. 

She didn’t speak for the rest of the session.

When the office called to schedule her next appointment, she didn’t answer the phone.

*********

**_February 14, 2018_ **

*********

The man stared up at her with a blank expression as Rey slapped the newspaper down on the desk in front of him. 

“Let me cut to the chase,” Rey said. “If you’re putting a help wanted ad in a goddamn newspaper in 2018, you must really be hard up. I’m a hard worker, I know cars, and I’ll stay out of your way if you stay out of mine.” 

The man raised an eyebrow at her. “What charm school did _you_ graduate from?” he asked mildly, but there was a faint hint of amusement across his features. “Well,” he said, leaning back in his chair, “considering I only came back to the shop six months ago and currently have a staff of one, I guess you’re better than nothing.” He gestured to the photo collage on the wall behind him. “Spent a few years touring most of the Eastern Hemisphere.” 

“Fascinating,” Rey said flatly. “When do I start, um…” 

He stood, extending a hand and grasping hers in a firm handshake. “Luke,” he said. “Luke Skywalker.” 

*********

**_May 4, 2018_ **

*********

“Hey, kid.” 

Rey glanced up from her magazine, her eyebrows rising to her hairline as Luke set down a small vase of flowers. “Heard you finished your last classes,” he said gruffly. “How did they even let you take that many credits to complete a two-year degree in a year and a half?”

Rey shrugged, but there was a hint of a smile at the corners of her lips as she turned the vase towards her, taking in the slightly-wilted daisies. “Let’s just say I was a motivated student,” she said. 

“What’s your degree in again?”

“Business administration,” Rey said in a distracted voice, reaching out to rearrange the flowers that Luke had clearly slotted into the cheap vase himself. “I figured I might be able to help out here or at the coffee shop, if nothing else.” 

“Hm.” Luke shrugged, leaning against the desk. “You planning to walk in graduation? Celebrate a little?”

He glanced down at the desk, raising an eyebrow as Rey shoved the half-finished sketch she’d been working on under her magazine. 

“No,” she said flatly.

*********

**_July 1, 2018_ **

*********

_Can you believe there’s FINALLY a new Lost Galaxy novel?? I can’t wait to dig into this one… sounds like it’s going to have some good MattKira interactions!_

Rey stared unblinking over her cup of coffee at the book cover splashed across her Tumblr dashboard. 

**_Shadow and Fate_ ** _by Ben Solo_

_Kira has always known her destiny lay beyond the alliance and the galactic war. When she finds out that part of that destiny is intertwined with Matthias Logan, she’ll be forced to confront her past, her present, and her future as she struggles to carry the light forward… and confront what Matt might mean for her fate, and the fate of the galaxy._

She didn’t move as her coffee turned cold, as her laptop screen dimmed, as the sun continued to track across the sky outside her apartment.

*********

**_July 2, 2018_ **

*********

_so are we going to talk about Lost Galaxy straight up normalising abuse by actually publishing a fucking book about Kira and Matt? Like Matt should be anywhere NEAR her? Like he hasn’t tried to kill her and her friends a million times? What the FUCK Del Rey is this the kind of trash you’re supporting??_

_(please tell me i’m not alone here, i feel like i’m going crazy seeing all of these MattKira posts on my dash, ugh)_

thereyoflight sipped her coffee, staring at her blog as the number of notes ticked upwards. 

She could almost feel something in her chest. 

She wasn’t sure it was something good. 

But it was still something. 

And that was more than she’d had in a long time. 

She opened another tab and began typing. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three more chapters left. I can't believe it, either.
> 
> Sorry for the ending of this one. TUESDAY IS COMING. 
> 
> (So is more Rose.) 
> 
> Follow me on Twitter at enemiestolover1 for updates. Thank you all for making this all one hell of a ride thus far. We're in the home stretch now.

“Hey, Kaydel, it’s Finn again. Can you… yeah, I know you already covered for her yesterday, but things are still pretty bad over here…” 

Finn glanced at Rey’s prone form on the couch, tucking his phone into the cradle of his neck and shoulder before moving into the kitchen, still speaking to her coworker at the coffee shop in a pleading undertone. 

Tuesday morning, and Rey was where she’d been since Friday evening: curled up in a blanket on Poe’s couch, staring into the middle distance, only moving when necessary. She’d managed to explain to Finn and Poe what had happened in the briefest terms before something in her had just… broken, and she’d entered a blank state of nothingness, where nothing really registered, nothing mattered, nothing _was._

It was preferable to the alternative, really. 

Finn had been an ace through the whole thing, hugging her when she’d shown up on Poe’s doorstep in tears, bringing her hot chocolate and the fluffiest blanket in the apartment, cursing Ben’s name, calling Luke to tell him she wasn’t feeling well and wouldn’t be at the shop over the weekend, begging Kaydel to cover her shifts at the coffee shop until she was strong enough to be a person again. 

Poe, for his part, hadn’t said much, just opening his apartment to her and watching Rey with a wary eye. Once or twice she’d heard him arguing with Finn through the bedroom wall, and she’d closed her eyes and burrowed into the couch. 

It reminded her of arguing with Ben, which just made her that much angrier. How did _everything_ remind her of Ben, the good parts, the bad parts, all of it? He was like a ghost that she’d never had a prayer of exorcising. 

And now he was back, against all odds. Was he still in L.A.? How was he writing fanfiction in what was undoubtedly a busy, glamorous life of publishing professionally? Had he sought her out? Was it a coincidence? Was he _sorry?_ What was his…

No. No, back to the nothingness. Back to that blank space where Rey felt nothing and no one left and no one could hurt her anymore.

Finn cursed under his breath as he appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, swiping at his phone. “Kaydel is covering for you today and tomorrow,” he said, “but she’s really putting herself on the line at this point. Said if you don’t show up for your shift on Thursday, that’s probably it.” 

“Okay,” Rey said, her voice rough from disuse. She didn’t look at him. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him glance back into the kitchen. There was a cessation of running water, a clinking of dishes, and she rolled over on the couch to see Finn speaking softly to Poe, who was drying his hands with a dish towel and glancing at Rey. 

“I’m right here, you know,” she said, pushing herself into a sitting position. “I know you’re talking about me.” 

“I think that’s more words than we’ve heard you say in the last few days put together,” Poe remarked. “You ready to try eating something?” He gave her one of his most disarming smiles, but there was a note of concern in his eyes. 

Rey shook her head, plucking at a stray thread on the blanket draped over her knees. 

“Is this better or worse than the time it actually happened?” Poe murmured to Finn. 

“If she’s still like this a year from now, I’ll let you know,” Finn said, grimacing. 

“Again, I can hear you.” Rey frowned at him, gathering up the blanket in her arms and half-heartedly attempting to fold it before shrugging and dumping it onto one of the cushions. 

There was a moment of charged silence as Finn and Poe exchanged another look. “So what are you doing tomorrow?” Poe said, watching Rey carefully. 

She shrugged again, wrapping her arms around herself. She really needed to figure out showering before too long. She wasn’t sure her legs would even support her long enough after several days lying on the couch. Maybe if she sat in the tub…

“Do you think you’ll be free around 3?”

Oh God she probably needed to wash her hair at some point, too. Could she even get a brush through it? She could feel the tangles around her shoulders even without touching them…

“Rey.” Finn sighed and crossed into the living room, sitting in the reupholstered armchair next to the couch. He glanced at Poe before taking a deep breath. “I called Maz Kanata.” 

Rey stilled in the process of carding her fingers through her tangled hair, staring at him with a blank expression. “You _what._ ” 

“She has an opening tomorrow at 3.”

_“Finn.”_

“I said I had to talk to you but that I’d call back to confirm,” Finn pressed on, ignoring Rey’s narrow-eyed glare. “Rey, this isn’t healthy, and we’re not really equipped to help here. Not with something that runs as…” He hesitated. “…deep as this.” 

“You know why I stopped going,” Rey said, clenching her hands into fists at her sides. “She wasn’t helping.” 

“Maybe you just weren’t ready.” Finn’s voice was gentle, and he met Rey’s glare evenly. “And maybe you still aren’t. But this has been going on for too long. It’s hurting you too much, and judging from everything I’ve been hearing about this online thing, it’s hurting _other people,_ too. That’s not the Rey I know.”

“You don’t know—” 

“Then talk to someone who does,” Finn insisted. “How many years were you in session with Maz? Even when things were good?” 

Rey closed her eyes, taking deep, unsteady breaths. It had only been a year of therapy, but Maz, for all her no-nonsense attitude, had listened. Sometimes Rey was almost convinced she understood. 

And considering the only other person who had was…

Rey shook her head, wrapping her arms around her middle again. “I couldn’t afford it even if I wanted to,” she said. “She was a hundred bucks an hour, and that was three years ago. Who knows what she’s up to now?”

“120,” Poe said evenly. “We asked.” 

“Yeah, I don’t have anywhere close to that kind of money.” 

“I do.” 

Rey raised her head to stare at Poe, who was watching her carefully. “I’m not asking you to…” 

“No, you’re not. I’m offering.” Poe slung the dish towel over his shoulder and took a step into the kitchen. “Think about it, okay?” 

Rey furrowed her brow in confusion, staring at Poe’s retreating back as he moved back into the kitchen. The sound of running water returned. 

She swallowed, glancing at Finn. “He’s just…” she struggled to speak, “one session isn’t going to…” 

“We talked about it,” Finn said, reaching over and putting a hand on Rey’s shoulder. “Consider it an open line of credit until you get leveled off a bit.” His dark eyes were pleading, and Rey bit her lip and ducked her head. “Please, Rey?” 

There were tears in her eyes as she nodded, allowing Finn to draw her into a tight hug. “Okay,” she breathed, even as she felt a tremor down her spine at the thought of returning to that office, to that room. “I’ll try.” 

Finn gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before extracting his phone from his pocket and moving into the bedroom to call Maz’s office. 

Which left Rey alone in the living room, staring towards the kitchen. 

She took a deep breath, stood, and crossed the threshold into that small space, meeting Poe’s quizzical stare before picking up another dish towel and wordlessly receiving the dripping dish he handed her. 

They worked in tense silence for a few moments, Poe washing and rinsing, Rey drying and neatly slotting the dishes and glasses into the drying rack. “Thanks,” Poe said finally. “Finn sucks at drying and we always end up with spots. You’re doing great.” 

“Mm,” Rey said, drying the coffee mug in her hands. “Spots are the worst.” 

“The worst,” Poe echoed. 

Rey closed her eyes for a second as she set the mug down on the counter. “Thank you,” she managed, dropping her chin to her chest. “I know we don’t get along…” 

“Nope.” 

“And I’m not saying we have to be friends…” 

“Far from it.” 

“But…”

“…we both love that idiot on his phone in the bedroom?” Poe finished with a wry grin. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking that, too. And it’s been killing him to see you like this.” 

“Yeah.” Rey sighed as Poe handed her a saucer. “It’s been a rough few days.” 

“A little longer than that, I think.” Poe glanced at her sidelong as he scrubbed a frying pan. “You’re willing to give it a shot, though? Talking to Maz?”

Rey shot him an amused look. “Honestly? If you and I can have a civil conversation, I think anything is possible.” 

“Maybe one day we can work up to tolerating each other’s social media habits.” 

“Let’s not get crazy there, Dameron.”

*****

Rey bit her lip and wrung her hands in her lap as she stared up at the clock on the wall ticking sedately away. 2:55.

The waiting room hadn’t changed at all in the last three years: the same uncomfortable chairs in garish upholstery, the same smell of stale coffee and dusty houseplants, hell she was pretty sure even the magazines were the same ancient gossip rags from the mid-2000s. It was a tiny office suite in an ancient brick building, and the cell service was next to zero, so Rey had read them all at one point or another. Some more than once.

Rey took a deep breath and exhaled, drumming her heels against the carpet. Finn and Poe had both offered to come with her, but she hadn’t wanted Finn to take off work, she didn’t quite trust Poe enough yet (they were working on it, but there was a big gap between tentative civil conversations and escorting someone in a state of acute psychological distress to their first therapy session in years), and, in the end, this felt like something she needed to confront on her own. 

“Rey?”

She jumped as the door to the back offices opened, and a tiny woman with thick glasses and a patient smile appeared in the doorway. “Wondered how long it would take you to come back,” she said in a voice that sounded like it had gone through three packs a day for the better part of forty years. “Ready?”

Rey swallowed, staring down at her hands. There were red marks across her knuckles and the backs of her hands from her twisting and wringing. “No,” she said honestly. “But I’m doing it anyway. Let’s go.”

*****

They’d barely sat down, Maz in a plush, towering office chair that made her look comically small and Rey tucked into a corner of the soft leather couch across from it, before it all came pouring out of her. 

Rey had only spoken about what happened with Ben in the coolest, most detached tones she could manage back in 2017, when it was still fresh and she’d been more successful at distancing herself from all of it. Successful at convincing herself that she had, at any rate. 

But three sessions into the aftermath and she’d shut down completely, never returning to the office, to Maz’s sympathetic stares and pointed questions. 

Now, though, the words came out in a rush, like some scab had been ripped off a wound Rey had thought was long-healed. 

She told Maz about what she’d done over the last three years. How she’d gone to college, but hadn’t followed her dream once she was there. 

How she’d fallen into dead-end work and convinced herself she was happy. 

How she’d gotten wrapped up in everything with the anti-MattKira movement, finding what she’d thought was friendship and social capital through something that seemed to make it all so much worse in the long run.

And finally… Ben.

“You knew he’d come back eventually,” Maz said, sipping at her tea and eyeing Rey. “That he’d try to contact you one day.” 

Rey hesitated, pulling a throw pillow into her lap and squeezing it. “I didn’t. I never expected that at all.” 

“Really?” Maz’s stare, even through the thick lenses of her glasses, appeared unconvinced. 

Rey took a deep breath. “I didn’t want him to,” she admitted. “It was easier to have him be far away so I could…” 

She hesitated, glancing up at Maz, who gestured her forward. “I can’t do this,” she said, tossing the pillow aside and coming to her feet. 

“Rey.” 

She stared helplessly at the old woman before sitting back down. 

“It’ll feel so much better when you say it and start to work your way through it.” Maz leaned forward in her chair and took Rey’s hands in her soft ones. “I know you know. Finish it.” 

Rey’s hands were shaking, and she swallowed hard. “It was easier if he was gone and I didn’t have to love him anymore,” she managed, voice breaking on a rising hiccup of a sob. “If I could just forget that he stopped loving me, just like…” 

Maz squeezed her hands, waiting. 

“Like my _parents_ did.” 

And there it was. Maz kept one hand wrapped around Rey’s and reached back onto her desk with the other to retrieve a box of tissues. Rey was clinging to her hand, her head falling as her shoulders shook with silent sobs. 

“I’m,” Rey hiccupped, blowing her nose noisily, “I’m sorry, Maz, I’m so sorry…”

“You have nothing to apologise for,” Maz said. “This was a long time coming, and I have plenty of extra tissues in the hall closet. You could flood the place and we’d still be set.” 

Rey managed a short, barking laugh at that, releasing Maz’s hand and leaning back into the couch. “I found out they’d died when I was fifteen, you know,” Rey murmured, blowing her nose again. “Just two more OD cases in some flophouse on the north side of town. Nine years and they never even tried to find me. Ben never did, either. It’s only dumb luck we stumbled into each other again.” 

Maz pursed her lips, steepling her fingers in the way she did when she was thinking about something. “But you said you changed your phone number.” 

Rey tossed the crumpled tissue in her hand into the nearby rubbish bin. “What does that have to do with anything? And besides, wouldn’t you have?”

“Well that or blocked his number, sure. But it makes it harder to prove that he never tried to contact you again. You wouldn’t have known if he did or he didn’t.” 

Rey frowned. That thought had occurred to her, of course — it had been the whole point of changing her number in the first place, that she hadn’t _wanted_ to talk to him. Over time, it had been far too easy to convince herself that he never would have cared enough to try. 

“That doesn’t prove that he did,” she said, frowning. 

“It doesn’t,” Maz agreed. “And what he did was still awful. I understand why it hurt you so deeply. That’s valid.”

“ _Thank_ y—” 

“But.” Maz leaned forward in her chair. “We have to get you some better coping skills. The ones you’re using now are destructive.”

Rey bit the inside of her lip. “You mean the Tumblr thing?”

“That’s just for openers, but yes.” Maz shook her head. “I’ve never understood the whole Internet thing. Maybe I’m just old.”

“I mean…”

Maz leveled her with a flat stare. “But I really don’t understand why you’re spending all of your time talking about something you hate.”

Rey hesitated. “It started with…”

“Ben’s book, I know.” Maz sighed. “Why do you think it turned into something bigger than that?” 

Rey fell quiet, reaching out to grab another tissue and clutch it in one hand. 

“Hurt people hurt people,” Maz said when the silence stretched out for several minutes. It was something she’d said in session ages ago, when Rey had fiercely defended her parents’ actions and Maz had pushed back and tried to get her to accept that she’d been hurt, that it was okay to be angry with what had happened. “Happy people don’t act like those people you see commenting online. I see them sometimes on Facebook.” 

“You have Facebook?” 

“I’ll ignore that second indictment of my age. Like I was saying, I’ll see them commenting, saying the nastiest things on Facebook, and maybe it’s the number of years I’ve spent in this profession but I always wonder who hurt them. What’s going on in their lives that makes them project that hate outwards.” Maz gave Rey a meaningful look. “This time I’m pretty sure I know. And you do, too.” 

“I didn’t,” Rey said quietly. “I really thought… I was doing something good. I was protecting people.” 

“From fictional characters.” 

“Yes.”

“You know that sounds ridiculous.” 

“I’m starting to,” Rey murmured. “You know in my mind I never even connected Matt to Ben? That I hated them for so many of the same reasons? That I think I was even trying to protect Kira from getting her heart broken?” She shook her head, laughing humourlessly. “It was right there the whole time, Maz. And I never saw it. Not until he came back and upended everything.” 

Maz exhaled. “Once again I wonder what might have happened with you two if either of you would have had a lick of decent communication ability. If you ever get back together…”

 _“Maz,”_ Rey said in a warning voice. 

“Couples counseling,” she finished, ignoring her. “First day. I’ll even charge you on a sliding scale.” 

“You can charge zero because I haven’t even figured out if I ever want to speak to him again.” 

Maz nodded. “I’m not sure if you’re ready to. You’ve made some big steps today. It might be wise to put off the outreach until you’ve processed that a little.” 

She reached back onto her desk to retrieve her schedule book, her silent signal that the session was over, and Rey bit her lip. “What would you do?” she blurted out. “If you were in my position?”

Maz glanced at her over her glasses as she flipped open the schedule book. “Come back on Friday, for one. Two-thirty work for you?”

Rey nodded, raising her eyebrows expectantly.

Maz sighed, penciling Rey into the Friday box. “Start by writing a letter,” she said. “You don’t have to send it. But get everything out that you might want to say, just as a starting point. You’ve spent the last three years suppressing all of this. My guess is it’ll be extremely cathartic to allow yourself to be angry and honest with yourself about why.” 

She snapped the book shut. 

“For the first time in awhile, I’d guess,” Maz finished meaningfully.

*****

_Dear Ben._

No.

_Ben:_

Also no.

_Mr. Benjamin Solo:_

Hard to be that detached and formal with someone who’d eaten you out so many times and for so long you’d wondered that he didn’t grow gills. Even if they _were_ a fucking liar.

Rey fell back onto her bed with her phone in hand. She’d finally made it back home after her second session earlier in the day with Maz, which had resulted in more painful truths and more crying jags as they’d finally delved deep into her childhood. But, somehow, it was a good kind of crying, a good kind of anger even as she tore a tissue box in half with her bare hands and threw it across the room. 

“It’s okay that you loved them, even though they hurt you,” Maz had said, and waited patiently until Rey finished crying. 

That, of course, had led to the second part of that story, that it was okay that she’d loved _Ben._

Rey had been dreaming of him again. Not even nightmares, _good_ dreams, dreams where she woke up snuggled in his arms, dreams where she read through his manuscripts and teased him about awkward wording and praised him for emotional beats, dreams where he kissed her and stroked her hair. 

And dreams where he was Kylo and she was Isobel, meeting on some far-off battlefield, looking strangely like some bizarre simulacrum of Matt and Kira, re-enacting the early chapters of “Across the Stars,” all tearful apologies and righteous anger. 

Those were the most confusing, and not for the first time since discovering Ben’s identity, Rey wondered what game he was playing in writing something that, in retrospect, uncomfortably mirrored so many elements of their own story together. 

She hadn’t been able to re-read it. She hadn’t even touched Tumblr since the previous Friday. There must have been things she missed, things he said or she said that made him think that she would have known… if indeed he really had and wasn’t just covering his ass once he was found out. 

But then she would remember Kylo’s gentleness, the soft way he spoke to “Isobel,” the patience and understanding, and she was more confused than ever. 

Rey had spent the last three years pushing Ben so far away, demonising him in her mind so thoroughly that being confronted with him in truth was wildly disconcerting. Evil Ex Ben would have written Matt destroying Kira’s mind and torturing her. He would have stalked Rey’s blog and taunted her, mocking her pain. He would have been… well, everything she had convinced herself the MattKiras were doing. 

Real Ben, though… Real Ben apparently wrote stories about painful atonement. He listened to her when she was upset and teased her into laughing and crying all at once when she was mired in depression and anger. He pushed her to do something better, he understood her, he…

Rey’s eyes widened, and she groaned loudly before burying her face into a pillow.

_It’s okay that you loved them._

_It’s okay that you loved_ **_him._ **

_Loved…_

_“Fuck,”_ she swore, her voice muffled. 

*****

Rey cradled her laptop between her knees, fingers hovering uncertainly over the keyboard before she pulled up Tumblr. 

Ten unread messages. 

There were 155 unread asks in her inbox, but it was the otherwise-innocuous happy face that was taunting her. 

Rey glanced at the other open tab, where she’d composed her letter to Ben in all its grammatically-incorrect and emotionally-vomitous glory. She’d cross that bridge when she got to it, she decided, beginning to scroll through her dashboard. 

It only took five posts before her stomach turned at the sight of a series of virulent anti-MattKira posts. A new receipts blog had opened and quickly gained steam through its seemingly-endless screenshots of MattKira posts on Tumblr and Twitter, and Rey’s mutuals were delighting in its existence and leading the charge to find out who was behind the blacked-out usernames in the posts. 

There were also at least five blogs that had successfully completed the mission Rey had only bluffed at, posting numerous conversations they’d pulled from Discord servers and group chats with MattKiras as they attempted to infiltrate their ranks. The anti fandom seemed alight with some kind of gleeful malice, congratulating each other on their initiatives, and nearly every post Rey scrolled through was openly tagged “mattkira”. 

And the worst part was… the MattKira posts were innocuous. Boring, even. There were the standard thirst tweets and people posting their excitement about the upcoming season and countless reposts of pictures of Cameron and Zoey chatting at some awards show appearance that past weekend, but that was about it. One or two cringeworthy posts were sandwiched in between the normalcy, but it felt… cruel. Crueler than usual. 

_Hurt people hurt people,_ Rey distantly heard Maz saying, and she could see it, in every post, in every snide comment, in every mocking reaction image. 

_I’m sorry for whatever’s hurting you. It’s everywhere._ Kylo’s… no, _Ben’s_ words, there in the beginning, likely before he’d even known it was her. Before he knew that she’d have reasons to be so angry, so hurt, so…

But he picked up on it, just the same. 

_…you’re all **miserable** , _ Rey realised, staring at her dashboard, and she felt her stomach rise to the back of her throat, bile and bitterness and regret all at once. _Every single one of you. How can you act like this and pretend that you’re happy?_

How could she? For so long? 

Rey clasped her hand to her mouth as she rushed to the bathroom, falling to her knees in front of the toilet and retching violently. 

This whole time. 

This whole _fucking_ time, and she hadn’t even realised it. 

Rey finished emptying the contents of her stomach and weakly stood, rinsing out her mouth at the sink and staring at her laptop where it lay open on her bed. 

She was ready now. 

She could face him. 

She could. 

Rey climbed back onto her bed and settled her laptop on her thighs, taking a deep breath and clicking on the messages icon. 

No new messages from thekyloren. He hadn’t been active in days. When she clicked through to his blog, there’d been nothing since last Friday. 

And, wait… she’d blocked him. So how could he have… 

Rey’s eyes widened as she took in the username on the unread conversation. 

The messages she _did_ have were, against all odds, from roseofthegalaxy.

Rey’s brow furrowed in confusion as she opened and skimmed through them, pressing one hand to her mouth, tears springing to her eyes as she realised just what had happened. 

Just what _he_ had done.

Before she knew it, she was typing. 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _r_ _ose?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i’m sorry_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i’m so fucking sorry_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i’m ready to talk now_

She stared at the message box with her heart in her throat, her fingers stroking the keys. 

One minute.

Two. 

Three.

Then:

> **_roseofthegalaxy:_ ** _i’m so happy to hear from you!!! <3 _
> 
> **_roseofthegalaxy:_ ** _how have you been? :)_

Rey was already typing. 

She kept typing as the moon rose, as it began its slow track across the ink-dark sky outside her bedroom window.

*****

_Unblock ‘thekyloren’?_

Click. 

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _Dear Ben,_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _I’m not even sure what to say to you after all this time._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _I hated you for so long. Tried to anyway_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _I’m just now realising how much that hate spilled into other things. People. Places._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _It’s still fucked up that you knew it was me and didn’t say anything and just assumed I knew (what the fuck Ben)_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _It’s fucked up that you never tried to contact me_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _And we never talked about it but it is beyond, monumentally, unforgivably fucked up that you left, that Snoke made you choose between me and him/your career and that even though you’d asked me to marry you you STILL didn’t choose me when it mattered_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _I’m talking about it with Maz. There’s stuff with my parents that made it a lot worse. You probably knew that, which is also fucked up_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _So much of what you did was fucked up, Ben. It really was_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _The only thing I’ve gotten out of all of this is thinking that maybe, MAYBE it hurt you too_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _Which YOU WOULD FUCKING DESERVE_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _But you know had never occurred to me until all of this??_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _Anyway_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _I meant it when i said i didn’t want to like you_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _Even though I didn’t know i was saying it to “you”_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _I spent too many years invested in hating you. Hating everything that “Ben” was_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _But, and this is BY FAR the most fucked up part_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _all of this?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _Made me remember my Ben_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _The man who sat with me and peeled potatoes until his hands were raw just because he couldn’t stand to see me cry_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _the man who proposed to me with a sapphire because he knew i hated diamonds_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _The man who told me my art was beautiful_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _the man who held me when i had nightmares and made me breakfast in bed when I was sick and was my fucking everything_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _I loved that Ben_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _I wanted to go with that Ben_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _oh motherfucker i’m crying_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _guess that never changed_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _but Ben I wanted to go with you. I really did_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _That’s like the second most fucked up part of all of this. That we could have made it work, that we probably could have stayed together and figured something out if we had just TALKED_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _the most fucked up is that I’m pretty sure I still love you_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _wild right_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _Isobel definitely loved Kylo_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _maybe i just got wrapped up in_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _oh_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _OH_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _you absolute fucking idiot DID YOU THINK WE WERE PLAYING THE GAME???_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _THIS WHOLE TIME_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _Ben you are so fucking stupid tell me that’s not it_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _(not that you’re ever going to respond to this but that would almost be hilarious)_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _(in literally the worst fucking possible way jfc)_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _……but yeah no_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _Isobel loved Kylo because I… well. You know_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _just thought you should know that. Anyway_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i’m going to be deleting this blog, i think. I’ve done enough harm_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i talked to rose — thank you for that btw_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _god there was so much i wanted to tell you but i’m falling asleep_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i don’t forgive you yet_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i still have so many questions_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _but i love you, you asshole_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i never really stopped, even when i hated you_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _Maz is going to be so mad when she finds out I actually sent this_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _but fuck it_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i’ve spent enough time lying to myself, and everyone else_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _sincerely,_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _Rey Should-Have-Been-Solo_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _(I hope that hurts you)_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _(i may still love you but i’m not a fucking saint)_

*****

“Hey kid, what are you still doing up this late?” Luke stretched and scratched at his stomach. The living room was pitch-dark except for the faint glow of a laptop screen. 

“Reading,” a deep voice came from the couch, but it sounded strange. Strangled.

Luke stared at the dark head bowed over the laptop before shrugging and retreating back to the guest room. 

*****

Rey shoved her hands into her pockets as she hopped down the stairs on the bus, tossing a thanks to the driver over her shoulder. Saturday morning had dawned bright and cold, with a hint of a breeze that carried the last months of winter on its back. The shop was a short three-block walk from the bus stop, but Rey’s strides were purposeful, her eyes staring straight ahead. 

She’d called Maz before leaving for work, and, as she’d thought, the old woman had been less than thrilled when she’d admitted to messaging Ben in the middle of the night. “Did it make you feel better, at least?” Maz had asked with a sigh. 

“It did,” Rey had confirmed. And talking to Rose… God, that had been emotionally draining, as Rey had torn her heart out and tearfully apologised for. Well. Everything. 

And Rose had been so patient and understanding. It would be an uphill battle if Rey wanted to stay in the fandom, she’d said, but they could find a way to make it work. After all, if Matt could get a redemption arc, Rey herself could, too. 

It was almost like the dawn of something new: frightening and unfamiliar, but for the first time in she didn’t even know how long, it was like Rey’s past, present, and future were converging into something hopeful, something positive. 

Her eyebrows flew up as she walked into the shop yard, and Rey burst into a grin at the sight of a familiar car parked beside one of the bays, sporting a new white paint job, her frame gleaming in the morning sun. 

The Falcon. 

Rey walked up to the old girl and ran her hands lovingly over the hood. She’d sold her to Luke for two hundred bucks shortly after she started working at the shop — her engine and transmission had been more or less shot, and she didn’t have the emotional fortitude to get her running again. 

(The cheap selling price had been one last “fuck you” to Ben, if she was being honest, so it almost seemed fitting that his car had reappeared at the same time he had.) 

“Well hey, she’s alive.” 

Rey glanced over her shoulder to the doorway of the shop, where Luke stood smiling, his arms crossed over his chest. “Me or the car?” Rey said, turning and sitting against the hood. 

“Both.” Luke jerked his head back towards the inside of the shop. “My nephew covered for you when you were out sick last weekend. Business was slow, and as soon as he caught sight of the old girl he was under the hood in about two minutes flat. He’s been working on it all week.” 

Rey raised an eyebrow. “Did he get it running?” 

“Purrs like a kitten. Well,” he amended, “a very surly, possibly drunk kitten. It is the Falcon, after all. I’m surprised it’s still in one piece after everything Han put it through back in the day.”

Rey furrowed her brow in confusion. “Wait, you know…” 

“Finished that tire rotation, Luke,” a deep voice said from behind him, and Rey went white, her eyes widening, heart catching in her throat. “Did you want me to…” 

And she was still pretty sure she looked less stunned than Ben, who staggered against the doorframe, staring at her and blinking furiously. 

Luke glanced between them with mild surprise. “Oh,” he said. “Rey, this is Ben. I think you two know each other.” 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ended up being a beast at 10k, so after deciding against breaking past chapters, this one felt like it could stand to be a two-parter. There's a lot going on in it. 
> 
> An aside: I wrote both chapters with a fever and without sleeping, and rewrote major sections several times. If I did not think it was readable, I wouldn't post it and would break the schedule to ensure a reasonable degree of quality, especially considering this is a very important point of the story. However, I am content that I did the best I could with it. I hope you enjoy it, and that it answers a lot of questions. 
> 
> See you all on Friday. We're almost done. I couldn't have done this without all of you.

Maz, for all her advanced age and unassuming appearance, was a surprisingly proactive therapist. Rey had only been to two sessions this time around, and Maz had already assigned her significant amounts of homework and spent a fair bit of their time together practising “activities”. 

One of her favourites thus far seemed to be getting Rey to identify whatever emotion she was feeling and allowing her to feel it to the fullest extent. “You have problems with expressing your anger in a healthy, open way,” she’d said when Rey had frowned at the worksheet Maz had handed her. “It’ll help to identify when you’re feeling it so you can approach it differently.”

Commitment to healing meant humouring her, so Rey had spent much of the previous day practising identifying her emotions. Fear, when a broad-set middle-aged man sat too close to her on the bus. Frustration, when the Internet cut out halfway through an episode of _Cupcake Wars_ and she had to get up from a very comfortable spot on the couch to reset the modem. 

And loneliness, when she curled up in bed after sending her message to Ben and, for the first time in years, admitted to herself that she missed his large frame spooning against her back, his hand splayed warm across her belly and stroking her skin as she drifted off to sleep.

It was getting easier to identify what she was feeling, and, as much as she hated to admit it, Maz was right — it made it easier to process and react to those feelings in turn.

Except, she was discovering, when you were feeling so many contradictory emotions in such quick succession that it felt like someone had hit you in the back of the head with a two-by-four and all the worksheets in the world couldn’t tell you how you were supposed to deal with it. 

Which was where Rey found herself as she and Ben stared at each other, as she looked at an entirely too-calm Luke, as a million questions and emotions tumbled over in her mind and it seemed impossible to decide which to grasp at first. 

“Rey…” Ben started, taking a step towards her, and Rey shot him a death glare. 

“You,” she said in a low voice, ignoring how the first sound of his own in three years — saying her name, no less — sent shockwaves down her spine, “are already in enough trouble.” 

Ben had the good grace to fall silent then, raising his hands in surrender and stepping back towards the shop. 

“And _you…”_

“Have some explaining to do, I imagine,” Luke observed. Ignoring Rey’s expression of mute indignation, he turned to Ben. “Do me a favour and ring up Mrs. Clarkson? She’ll ask about her seniors’ discount. We don’t have one, but it’s easier to tell her it’s already been applied than argue with her over fifteen cents and have her threaten to call the AARP.” 

_“Luke.”_

Rey was advancing on them, and Luke grasped Ben’s shoulder and shoved him into the shop, pushing the door closed behind him and leaning against it, crossing his arms over his chest again and watching Rey’s approach with a disinterested eye. “If you’re going to murder both of us,” he said, “I’d prefer to get Mrs. Clarkson out of here first. Actually, I’d always prefer to get Mrs. Clarkson out of here, it’s a general state of affairs. You missed her explaining her hernia to Ben, poor kid.” 

Rey stopped, unclenching her fists and staring at Luke, shaking her head. “All this time,” she said, and her voice was oddly calm. “You knew. All this time.” _Anger,_ she thought. _Disappointment. Betrayal?_

Goddamn what she wouldn’t give for one of Maz’s worksheets right about now. 

“Which part? You? You and Ben?” 

Rey clenched her teeth, biting back a scream of frustration. “Any of it.”

Luke gestured to the Falcon behind her. “I figured it out when you sold me the car,” he said. “I know that car. I was probably an unwitting accessory to all kinds of fun misdemeanors, if not outright felonies in that car back in the seventies. If I didn’t know my nephew and imagined he’d had it detailed to within an inch of its life the second he got it, there would probably still be weed stashed in the trunk somewhere.” 

“Yours?” Rey asked, rolling her eyes. “Don’t think I don’t know all about your ‘greenhouse’ out back…” 

“Smartass. I never trafficked, but Han was an old hand at it back in the early days. Too slick to get caught, mostly — that man could talk himself out of just about anything. And he loved that car.” Luke closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. “So needless to say, I had plenty of questions when a girl showed up out of nowhere asking for a job and then sold it to me.” 

“What did you think?”

“Honestly? That you’d stolen it, or at least gotten it from someone who had.” Luke gave her a wry grin. “But you didn’t seem the type, so when you signed over the title and I saw your name and/or-ed next to Ben’s… I remembered Leia filling me in about what I’d missed with the family while I was seeking enlightenment in Tibet and Bhutan, something about my wayward nephew and the nice girl he’d done wrong by, and I put two and two together.” 

Rey stroked her hand over the Falcon’s hood, and she could feel Luke’s steady gaze on her. “Is that why I never met you?” she asked after a moment, not looking at him. “I was… we were together for a long time. I didn’t even know he had an uncle.” 

“My sister built her publishing house from the ground up when she was barely in her twenties as a giant ‘fuck you’ to the men in the industry who insisted a woman would never succeed on her own in it,” Luke said. “She had to make a lot of sacrifices to make that happen. Family was one of them.” He sighed, stroking his beard. “Leia loves me, and she loves her son. But it’s a little… out of sight, out of mind, sometimes. Ben was at boarding school for most of his childhood, I was backpacking through South Asia for the better part of a decade. Easy to get lost in the shuffle. You probably learned that one the hard way.” 

Rey frowned. “Leia was never anything but kind to me,” she said, voice tight. _Hurt,_ she thought. _Loss. Defensiveness._ For the woman who had smiled at her and wrapped her up in bear hugs with a surprising ferocity given her small stature, who had made sure she was always invited and always felt included, no matter how high-profile the event, how moneyed and disdainful the attendees. 

“She is kind,” Luke said, then grinned. “Beast of a temper, though. Ben got that one honest. And with you — I can’t even imagine the shouting matches between the two of you. I’ve never met anyone who could rival Leia and Han but I bet you came close to…”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” _Betrayal. Sadness. Anger._ Rey sat on the hood of the Falcon and slid back, drawing her knees up to her chest, glaring at Luke over them. “Did she tell you not to? Did he?” 

Luke sighed, walking over to stand next to the Falcon, resting a hand on her side mirror. “No one said anything,” he said. “I didn’t even tell them I knew until a little while ago. The 24th.” 

Rey shot him a humourless smile. “Great day.” 

“Yeah, I hadn’t actually connected that one until this year. What with Leia watching Ben like a hawk and Ben moping around the house like a kicked puppy, I connected the dots. But I always figured, why dredge up the memories? What was there to gain from telling you? ‘Oh, hi, Rey. Two oil changes and a serpentine belt replacement today. By the way, the guy you were engaged to who walked out on you? Yeah, that’s my asshole nephew. He steals money from the bank in Monopoly and always insists on being the racecar. Great kid. Want some coffee?’” He rolled his eyes. “You would have kicked me in the balls and quit, again, and I’d be out a pretty great shop assistant for the, what, sixth time? How many times have I fired you?” 

“Twice. And I wouldn’t have kicked you _that_ hard.” 

“Yeah, you would have.” 

“...you’re right, I would have.” Rey stretched her legs out and leaned back against the windshield. “How did it happen? I mean, did you tell him? Did he tell you?”

Luke scratched his beard thoughtfully. “He’d just cleared me out of half my money with his hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, and I’ve never seen someone so pissed off to be winning,” he observed. “He was in such a terrible mood all day, so I said something about my shop assistant probably having a rough day, too, the 24th is always bad for you, must be something going around, something like that. Kid went still as a statue and asked what your name was. And that was that.” 

Luke shrugged. “If it makes you feel better, he immediately wanted to know what I was paying you and said it wasn’t enough. Didn’t even have the chance to give him a figure before he decided that one, by the way.”

“I mean, he’s right.” 

“Anyway,” Luke said, eyeing her meaningfully, “we forgot about the game after that and just… talked, him, me, and Leia. First time we’ve done that in awhile, definitely since…” His mouth tightened, and he glanced at the Falcon. “At any rate, Ben called late last Friday and was adamant about me telling you the whole deal, coming clean and all that, but then you called out sick and… well. Here we are.” 

Rey pursed her lips, absently drumming her fingers against the Falcon’s hood as she stared at the door to the shop. “Friday,” she murmured. “Did he tell you everything else that happened? With us, online?” 

“He didn’t, and I didn’t ask. He was just really agitated and kept insisting that you needed to know everything, total transparency moving forward. I pointed out that maybe he should have said something himself considering he’d been home for…” Luke trailed off, avoiding Rey’s curious gaze. “Nothing.” 

Rey scowled. “I keep hearing a lot of ‘nothings’ that always seem to end up with someone lying to me. And I am really fucking tired of being lied to, Luke.” 

Luke nodded. “I can understand that. Sounds like you’ve had a rough couple of years.” He jerked his thumb towards the shop. “By the way, I didn’t know much about anything with your background when Ben asked, but he did mention the art school thing. Seemed bent out of shape when I had no idea you were even an artist. Like I wouldn’t have put you to work designing a new shop logo if I did — who wants to see those same damn twin suns after 40-some years?” 

“I never did figure out what those were supposed to be. Is it some vintage thing?” 

“Something like that. The original owner came from the same hometown as me and built that into the logo. I can’t imagine why it would mean anything to you.” Luke stretched. “Any other questions?”

Rey stared at him in disbelief. “Any other questions?” she repeated incredulously.

“I’d have a few if I were you, but what I do I know.” 

Rey covered her face with her hands. “Are you fucking serious right now?” she said, voice muffled. “‘Any other questions,’ he says. My boss is playing board games with my ex, who it turns out is _related_ to him, and he wants to know if I have any questions. Sure, like… how long has he been back? How long is he going to _be_ back? Is he working here now? Am I going to have to worry about running into his giant tree of a self when I get coffee on the weekends? What happens with…”

“You know,” Luke said, “those all sound like questions for Ben.” 

Rey pulled her hands from her face, staring at the shop door and taking a deep, unsteady breath. 

Luke looked at her. “It’s a light day, you know.” 

“They’re all light days,” Rey noted, still staring at the door. 

“I could probably handle it all by myself. You know.” He gestured to the empty bays. “If you and someone would want to talk a few things out. Sounds like it’s more than a little overdue at this point.” 

Rey worried her lower lip between her teeth, finally looking away from the shop, from the looming spectre of Ben and a conversation she knew deep down she would never be completely ready to have. “I don’t know if I can.”

She jolted as Luke laid a hand on her shoulder. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen something you couldn’t do,” he said, and his eyes were warm. Fatherly. 

Rey swallowed, staring at his hand. _Pride. Respect._

She thought of her blog, how long she’d chased both, and how everything she’d received from her fellow antis over the last year and a half had ultimately made a hollow mockery of them. 

_Regret._

That one had a bitter taste to it, rising to the back of her throat, and she nodded, laying her hand over Luke’s and setting her jaw in determination.

“Besides,” Luke observed with a grin, glancing to the shop, “remember: he’s more scared of you than you are of him.”

*****

_“You’ve reached the voicemail of Maz Kanata. If this is a true emergency, please contact your local emergency room and…”_

Rey bit her lip and ended the call, staring down at her phone. She supposed she’d been lucky enough to catch Maz earlier that morning, given that it was a Saturday, but lord could she use her advice right now. 

_What are your instincts telling you to do?_ she imagined Maz asking her. 

Run. 

Fight. 

Get as far away from here as possible and don’t look back.

March into the shop and beat Ben to within an inch of his life until he begged for her forgiveness.

_And what emotions are those?_

Fear.

Anger. 

_Why?_

Because he could hurt her in ways no one else ever could. 

Because she still loved him, and it wasn’t fair. 

Because he was here, and she couldn’t run anymore.

_What are your instincts telling you to do?_

Run. 

_Run._

Rey took a deep breath and opened the door to the shop. 

*****

She found Ben in the back office, which had been organised exactly once in 1979 and had since surrendered itself to chaos. It was a small space, anchored by an industrial desk and two machined chairs, and between Luke and Rey’s combined lack of filing abilities had enough loose papers and folders strewn about to make the hardiest fire captain break down and weep.

Ben was staring in distaste at the coffee pot at the back of the room. “It’s basically tar when Luke makes it,” Rey offered, closing the door behind her. “I don’t know if he even brews coffee grounds or just picks up gravel from the drive out front and throws it in.” 

“I think gravel would have a less dubious texture,” Ben remarked. It was nonchalant, but his hand was shaking as he set the pot back into the coffeemaker. He turned to face her, leaning back against the table. 

Rey wrung her hands together, looking at him for a long moment without speaking. She’d almost forgotten just how tall and broad he really was — he crowded the office with his shoulders alone. There were pulls and a stray spot of grease on his dark Henley, a few rips in his jeans, and his hair was lightly ruffled. 

Fuck, he was still hot. 

She hated him. 

“Hi,” she said, taking a hesitant step forward. 

“Hi,” Ben returned. He gestured to one of the chairs, and after a moment of rearranging the small space, he and Rey sat facing each other, knee-to-knee, avoiding each other’s eyes.

“This was easier when we had like four million pounds of potatoes to distract us,” Rey remarked, and she saw Ben faintly smile out of the corner of her eye. 

“You still remember that?”

Rey looked at him then, her eyes narrowed, and was surprised to see the look on his face. _Wariness. Trepidation. Exhaustion._

 _He’s scared, too,_ she realised. 

Good. 

“Of course I remember,” Rey said. “I remember all of it.” 

Ben nodded. “Me too.” 

There was a long moment of tense silence, Rey drumming her fingers against her knees, Ben with his hands in his pockets. “Cold today,” she finally said. 

“Yeah, a front moved through.”

“That makes sense. With the wind, I mean. But the sun’s out. So that’s good.” 

“Keeps it manageable.” 

“Melting some of the snow, too.”

“There’ll be more.” 

“Always is.” 

Silence. Again. 

“Must be an adjustment,” Rey said. “From L.A., I mean.” 

Ben gave her an odd look, but he remained quiet. 

Rey sighed, running a hand through her hair. “Look,” she said, “this is going to suck no matter how we slice it. So maybe we need some ground rules. Okay?”

Ben shifted in his chair, eyeing her curiously. “What did you have in mind?”

“Honesty, mostly.” Rey shot him a meaningful glance. _“Brutal_ honesty. Nothing held back, all cards out on the table. No matter how much it hurts.” 

Ben exhaled slowly. “Okay. Deal.” 

“No personal attacks.” 

“Agreed.” 

“And anyone who lies about anything has to drink a cup of Luke’s coffee. A _full_ cup.” 

Ben winced. “That’s cold.” 

“The coffee will be too pretty soon, and I doubt that’s going to improve its taste much.” She raised an eyebrow. 

Ben sighed and nodded. “Alright, deal. Do you want to go first? I don’t even know where to start.” 

“Oh awesome, because I do.” Rey leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “Why did you lie to me about who you were online? About not knowing who I was?”

Ben sighed, rubbing a hand over his jaw. “I didn’t,” he said, holding up his hand as Rey narrowed her eyes and tried to speak. “No, let me finish. I told you the truth when I said I didn’t know the whole time. In the beginning, I just thought I was fucking with some self-important anti with too much free time who was tearing down my writing.”

“You said you thought I was clever.” 

“You were. Are. But fucking hell, Rey, some of the stuff on your blog…” He stopped, then shook his head. “Sorry, that’s not part of this.” 

“I mean… you’re not wrong.” Rey chewed her lower lip. “It’s hard to look at some of it now. I showed some posts to Maz and she gave me that look where I know I said the wrong thing and she’s just waiting for me to correct myself.” 

Ben raised his eyebrows. “Maz?”

Rey frowned at him. “You said you were in therapy,” she said, a touch defensive. “You never minded when I was.” 

“No, I just… that’s great. Dr. Holdo’s been really helpful and gotten me through more than a few rough patches. I’m glad you’ve had Maz all this time, too.”

“Well.” Rey hesitated. “I just went back to her on Wednesday. Finn’s boyfriend is helping pay for it, although I think part of it was just him wanting me to stop semipermanently bonding to their couch after I went catatonic last week.” 

“Not over me, I hope.” 

Rey rolled her eyes. “No, why would I have been upset over my fucking ex-fiancé lying to me about his online identity and basically catfishing me into reading fanfiction about a pairing I loathe? And who apparently knew who I was for God knows how long?” 

“I figured it out on the 24th,” Ben said quietly. “I wasn’t sure — not at first, not even then. You’d said your name wasn’t Rey, and with the sheer level of anger and hate, I think I convinced myself it couldn’t be you. But then you said something about the 24th, and when you messaged me that night, the writing style, how much you were hurting…” He sighed. “I don’t know how I knew. I just knew.” 

“And you didn’t think maybe it would be a good idea to tell me?” 

Ben hesitated. “This is going to sound stupid in retrospect.” 

“I’m sure.”

“But I swear to God, Rey, with the way it all went down, I thought it was just another iteration of that old game we used to play. You were Isobel and I was Kylo…” He grimaced. “God, you were right about that sounding awful out loud.” 

Rey managed a hint of a grin at that.

“…and we were just circling each other, waiting to see who would break first,” he finished. “Once it got, well… flirty, I guess, I was even more convinced. Wishful thinking, maybe, that I knew it was you and you knew it was me and we were just… falling back into old habits, the way it used to be, before it all… before _I_ fucked everything up,” he corrected as Rey shot him a look. 

“You’re a fucking idiot, Ben Solo,” Rey said, not smiling. “What would you have done if it _wasn’t_ me? Just flirted with whatever random girl showed up in your inbox and started selling you shit about your writing?”

“You’re the only girl who’s ever cared enough about my writing to sell me shit about it,” he said frankly, “and the only girl I’ve ever acted like that with. The only one I’ve ever wanted to.” 

There was a line, somewhere in the minute space between them, and it felt like they were already toeing at it, seeing what lay beyond it. 

Rey was struck with a sudden urge to ask him if he’d read her messages the night before. Rip the Band-Aid off and deal with the wound beneath, no matter how deep it ultimately was. 

_Brutal honesty. Nothing held back, all cards on the table._

She wasn’t sure she was quite ready to read that particular card.

“How long have you been back?” Rey asked instead. _“Are_ you back? Luke didn’t give me a clear answer on that one.” 

“Luke barely knows what’s going on with anything,” Ben said. “But yes. I came back at the end of 2018.” 

Rey stared at him, mouth falling open. “I’m sorry, you’ve been back for a _year?”_

“A little more, yeah.” 

“And you didn’t think to contact me at some point?”

“Would you have answered if I did?”

Rey was quiet at that, and at Ben’s pointed look. “2018 was the worst year of my life,” he continued, and it was softer than the previous question. “I didn’t think anything could top 2017, but then 2018 blew it out of the water.” 

“You finally got your fucking novel published that year, didn’t you?” Rey muttered, crossing her arms over her chest and slouching down in her chair. “Couldn’t have been that bad.” 

Ben’s eyes met hers, and there was pain shining in them, something deep and unspoken lingering just beneath the surface. “You want the whole story?” he asked evenly. 

_It doesn’t matter. You still left. It was still your choice. You still hurt me and I hope you got every bit of it back when you…_

Anger. Hurt. Heartbreak. 

Rey closed her eyes. 

_What are your instincts telling you to do?_

_Run._

_Fight._

When she opened her eyes, she met his stare dead-on.

“I’m ready,” she said.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story continues. 
> 
> Backstory. So much backstory. 
> 
> If you guessed right about a few things, give yourself a pat on the back. Also: I hope it was worth the wait. 
> 
> See you all on Friday. It's going to be bittersweet to see this one end.

“It was an ultimatum,” Ben murmured, rolling his coffee mug between his hands. Rey had tossed Luke’s sludge and brewed a fresh pot, deciding they might as well have some caffeine to get them through what was undoubtedly going to be a godawful experience for both of them. 

(Neither of them had commented on how Rey had added one cream and three sugars to Ben’s coffee without even needing to ask.) 

“When Snoke laid down the 24th as his end date,” he continued, “it was with a clear choice: you, or the career he was offering me. When I showed up in L.A. alone, he was almost paternal, put an arm around my shoulders and told me it was all for the best, that kind of thing. I guess he thought I’d chosen right.” 

Rey sipped at her own coffee, her fingers tightening around her mug until they turned white. 

Ben looked at her, hesitating before reaching over with a gentle hand to loosen her fingers a fraction. 

She let him.

“I was trying to have it both ways,” he said softly. “I wanted everything he was offering. But I wanted you, too. I thought that if we were married he would have to accept that.” 

Rey gave him a mirthless smile. “So, what, you proposed to me to get your creepy agent off your back? Real fucking romantic, Ben.” 

“No, I proposed to you because I loved you, and I wanted to be your husband, and because the idea of a life without you in it was unthinkable.” It was blunt, and he didn’t look away.

Rey’s hands shook as she raised her mug and took another sip. “So unthinkable that you never contacted me again,” she said. “You just left and never looked back. So maybe not unthinkable, just a mild inconvenience, in the beginni—” 

“The first time I called you begging you to reconsider and come with me was January 26th,” Ben interrupted. “And I made it longer than I thought I would.” 

“What year?” Rey asked. She was baiting him and she knew it, but fuck it, they were both raw. 

“2017, for fuck’s sake, Rey.” He ran a hand over his face. “I barely lasted two days without you. I hadn’t slept without you in my arms for three years. Everything just felt so fucking wrong. So I called you on the 26th, and the 27th, the 28th. Every day, for months. Trying like hell to get through, to talk to you one more time.” 

Rey took a deep breath, setting her mug on the table beside her. “I changed my number the day after you left,” she admitted. 

“Yeah, I figured that out in May of that year when someone named Dave politely told me whatever girl I’d talked to had given me a fake number. They must have finally recycled it.” He sighed. “May 4th, of all days. Up until that point I’d been able to think that you’d just blocked me, which, okay, I understood that. I still do. But that… I knew it was over, then.”

“It had been over for months at that point,” Rey pointed out, clenching her hands together in her lap. “You were the one who—”

“I’m not defending anything I did. I can’t, and I won’t,” Ben interrupted. “I’m just telling you what happened.” 

Rey frowned but stayed quiet. 

“Up until that point,” he continued, “it was almost like… even if you weren’t answering, I could pretend I was still talking to you. Sometimes I’d text you and tell you about my day, like I used to when I came home from work and you would tell me I was boring and ask me to kiss you instead.” 

“I just wanted you to stop talking.” 

“It was a good way to make it happen.” A hint of a smile then, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “But then that was gone, and something in me broke. You were gone. It was over. I’d made my choice, and I had to live with that.” 

“We both did,” Rey said quietly, and he nodded. 

“Snoke had secured me a few TV writing gigs, which paid well enough, but I had zero motivation or energy to do much of anything. I would sleep twelve hours a day, more or less stopped eating, just taking up space, really. Snoke started getting impatient, which led to…” He hesitated. “Do you remember something I told you? Online?”

Rey furrowed her brow in confusion. “You told me a lot of things.”

“The thing about drugs.” 

Rey’s eyes widened. “I… yeah.” Christ, she’d forgotten about that, chalking it up as something that Kylo had only said in passing — but Kylo was Ben, which meant…

He shrugged. “I was a writer in L.A. Developing a coke habit was one of the easiest things I could have done. I have a bunch of IMDB credits from that first year because of it. But uppers are a fucking nightmare when you’re in a bad headspace. I’d lie awake at night and see you everywhere. Sometimes literally, depending on how much I’d taken, and Snoke made sure I always had plenty. I finally ended up drinking and skimming a coworker’s Valium to counteract it just so I could sleep every once in awhile.”

“Jesus Christ, Ben,” Rey muttered. “And I thought I got fucked up.” 

“Oh, it gets better.” Ben sighed and slumped in his chair. “Do you remember what you told me about Snoke, that last time?”

“What, that he’d chew you up and spit you out? That he was going to break you and you didn’t even see it?” 

“You were right. More than you knew, by a long shot.” Ben finished his coffee and set his mug next to Rey’s. “I was in a self-destructive spiral, strung out and depressed and barely tethered to reality to most days, and Snoke kept renegotiating our contract since I was becoming, in his words, a ‘difficult client’. His take kept getting bigger and I didn’t even fucking care.” 

Rey narrowed her eyes. “How much was he taking? I remember part of his whole selling point in the beginning was that he was taking a low percentage.” 

“12.5. That was the initial offer. Which lasted about three months. After that it kept getting exponentially higher, and I didn’t have anything in me to fight it.” 

“What did he get up to?”

“Sixty,” Ben said evenly, and Rey nearly fell out of her chair. 

“What the _fuck,_ Ben?” she swore. “Is that even legal?”

“Not particularly. I was out of my fucking mind. But Snoke really sold it: it was in my best interest, he was looking after me, and besides, who did I have other than him?” He closed his eyes and rested his head in his hands. 

Without thinking, Rey reached out and squeezed his knee. Ben looked at her in surprise, then slowly laid his hand over hers. 

Neither of them moved for a minute. 

Finally, he squeezed her hand back. 

“It was easy to coast on autopilot at that point,” Ben murmured. “Snoke paid for my drugs, he booked my writing jobs… I didn’t have to live. I just had to survive to the next day.”

“Yeah, I know what that’s like,” Rey said. Ben’s hand was warm in hers, and her heart hurt just from the feel of it. “How did you manage to write a book like that, though? There were days I couldn’t even write my own fucking name, let alone a whole goddamn novel.”

Ben looked at her strangely. “Did you ever read it?”

Rey gave him a narrow-eyed look, pulling her hand away and settling back in her chair. “I wouldn't have crossed the street to spit on you if I saw you at that point,” she said frankly. “You really think I would read your book?”

“You already did,” Ben said, ignoring her confused stare. “Back when I finished it in 2015.” 

Rey’s eyes widened in surprise. “Your novel,” she said in sudden understanding. “But how did you…”

“It was easy enough to reverse-engineer it to fit _Lost Galaxy._ Change the character names, the setting, a few plot elements. But the bones were there. It worked because it was already a good story. Because you’d helped me with it.” Ben swallowed hard, resting his hands on his knees. “It’s the one thing I did in L.A. that I’m proud of. I dedicated it to you. Wrote this long, emotional dedication, spent a solid paragraph in the thank you notes talking at length about how I never could have done any of it without you. Apologising for. Well. Everything.” 

Rey couldn’t quite look at him, and she felt like she could barely breathe around the lump in her throat.

“Snoke deleted all of it from the final copy,” Ben finished. “I’d barely felt anything in a fucking year and a half, but I lost it when I found out. There were pages of thank yous in the coda, for everyone who helped get the manuscript to publication, he even kept the dedication to my parents, but anyone looking through it who knew you, who knew our history… it looked like I was leaving you out on purpose. It looked so fucking deliberate.” 

Rey frowned to herself, brow furrowing as she remembered the anonymous message she’d gotten on Tumblr, the one that had torn everything between her and Ben wide open… what had it said? 

_I recommend reading Ben Solo’s Lost Galaxy tie-in novel, ‘Shadow and Fate’. I think it might answer a lot of questions…_

That had to be a coincidence. 

But still… fuck, she could only imagine if she actually _had_ read it, recognised the novel she had spent long nights reading and helping Ben edit as he pressed kisses to her neck and gamely tried to distract her, only to see him thank everyone but…

“It was the first time I ever pushed back against him,” Ben continued, and Rey broke from her thoughts. “I got a black eye for my troubles.”

“Mother _fucker,_ Ben, seriously? He _hit_ you?” 

Ben shrugged. “I told you, I didn’t feel much of anything. Not until that September, when…” 

He fell silent then, retrieving his phone from his pocket and typing at his screen. He handed it to Rey, and his eyes were glassy.

Rey’s heart dropped as she read the headline of the news article on his phone: _SHOPPING CENTRE MASSACRE LEAVES FIVE DEAD, TWELVE WOUNDED. LOCAL MAN SAVED DOZENS BEFORE SUCCUMBING TO INJURIES, POLICE SAY._

“Your father,” Rey breathed as Han’s name caught her eye, looking at Ben in horror as she skimmed the rest of the article. 

Ben nodded, his jaw tight, crossing his arms over his chest. “Active shooter at the mall,” he said, and his voice was rough-edged. “He was buying my mother a crockpot. She’d always wanted one, apparently. I don’t think my mother’s ever set foot in a kitchen in a cooking capacity in her life, but she liked the idea of it, and Dad liked indulging her.”

He was quiet for a long moment, staring into the middle distance. “It wasn’t an anniversary or anything. Dad didn’t go for those. If he did something for you, it was always random, just because. He lived in chaos like that. Even in the end: crazy bastard took on a gunman in tactical gear with just his bare hands, shoved him into a fountain, and managed to hold him long enough that the rest of the place emptied out.” 

_Solo was bleeding heavily but still subdued the gunman, police said, allowing the majority of nearby mall patrons to escape without further injury and holding the gunman until authorities arrived and took him into custody. Solo, who had received multiple gunshot wounds in the scuffle, was taken to Mercy General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead._

_Solo is survived by his wife, publishing magnate and award-winning memoirist Leia Organa-Solo, and his son…_

Rey wordlessly handed Ben’s phone back to him, brushing her fingers over his. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “He was a good man. And he adored you.” 

Ben nodded, thrusting his phone back into his pocket. “You know the last thing I said to him?” he managed, voice tight. “We got into a huge fight, right before I left. The 23rd. He asked me what the fuck I was doing, if I was really stupid enough to leave you when you were the best thing that ever happened to me. I told him I was taking you with me, he said I shouldn’t be going in the first place or putting you in that position, and we just went back and forth, screaming at each other.” He put his head in his hands. “The last thing I said to him, as I stormed out of there, was ‘you’re dead to me’. That was the last thing.” 

Rey bit the inside of her cheek, and her hands ached to stroke his hair back, to hold him close and stop the fine tremor running through his shoulders, to reach back in time and hold him to her and stop all of this from ever even _happening._

“I don’t remember much after that,” Ben said, and his voice was muffled by his hands. When he pulled his face away from them, his eyes were red. “I spent the next few months in a drugged-up haze. I don’t even know what I was on. Didn’t particularly care.” 

Rey reached out and took his hand, holding it between both of hers and stroking her thumbs over his knuckles. “What got you out of it?”

“You’re going to laugh.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Has one iota of this been funny yet?”

“It was an episode of _Lost Galaxy.”_

“…you’re fucking shitting me.” 

“Swear to God.” He managed a weak smile. “Do you remember the episode from last season right before the winter break? The one where Matt was telling Kira about how his father had tortured him when he’d first gone with him and making excuses for everything he’d done thus far?”

Rey laughed. “Oh yeah, I remember. The anti community got a lot of mileage out of dragging him for that one. _That’s_ what got you?” 

“No,” Ben said, “what got me was Kira laying into him when he tried that bullshit. He was selling this sob story and feeling sorry for himself, and she didn’t fucking budge. You knew they loved each other at that point—”

“Hey now, that’s super up for deba—” Ben gave her a meaningful look, and Rey cut herself off, biting her lip. “Sorry. Old habit.”

“And,” Ben continued, “she was still willing to hand him his ass when he fucked up. She didn’t enable him or forgive him unconditionally or tolerate any of his lame-ass excuses. And all I could think of was you. I thought about what you would say if you saw me like that, and I knew I’d do the same fucking thing, just grovel and try to explain it all away, and you’d kick my ass for even trying. And that was…” He closed his eyes. “Fuck, Rey, I missed you so much I couldn’t stand it.” 

He squeezed her hand. “I knew you were gone. I accepted that. The best I could hope for was that you were happy, wherever you were.” 

“I wasn’t,” Rey interjected. It was terse, and she pressed her thumbs to his knuckles so hard he winced. “I wasn’t happy at all, Ben. I wish one of us could have been.”

Ben nodded. “I know.” 

“So what did you do?”

“I called my mother,” he said. “I was drunk, and I spilled my guts to her. It was December 30th. On the 31st I was on a plane back east with my laptop and the clothes on my back. She didn’t have her driver meet me at the airport, and she didn’t talk to me for two days when I got to her house. It…” He paused. “It took us a little while to get to a place where we could figure out how to be a family again. She still hasn’t forgiven me for not coming home for dad’s funeral.” 

“Fucking hell, Ben.” 

“We finally went to his grave together after I came home and had a long talk with him. It helped a little,” Ben continued. “Well,” he amended, “first my mother pitched me into three weeks of rehab. It was pure hell, but it introduced me to Dr. Holdo. She’s tough as nails, but I don’t know what I would have done without her.” 

“And you’ve stayed clean?” Rey asked, remembering their brief conversation online. 

Ben nodded. “I haven’t had much of an urge to do anything since I left L.A., even with the fallout. My mother put me to work writing copy for her nonprofits to keep me busy in the meantime.” 

“You mean the thing you rejected to go with Snoke?” Rey asked sardonically. “The thing you apparently ended up doing anyway and could have just done in the first place and avoided all of this?” 

Ben gave her a flat stare, but there was no rancour to it. “So that’s how I’ve spent my time since I came back. More or less.” 

“And writing MattKira,” Rey said, tracing his knuckles with her pointer finger. “Disgusting.” 

He managed a smile at that, nudging her hand and twining their fingers together. Rey made a face but didn’t pull away. “You read a lot of words for something you find disgusting,” he pointed out. 

“Fuck that, I deserve some kind of credit considering how much you lifted from our lives now that I know you wrote the damn thing.” She was half-joking, but Ben gave her an odd look. 

“I wrote you a lot of letters,” he said after a moment. “Dr. Holdo’s advice. But they were never quite right. I kept falling back into the same trap that Matt had; it always sounded like I was making excuses. Not owning up to it the way you deserved. And then I was watching the season finale and Matt and Kira kissed—” 

“Ugh.” 

Ben shot her a look, but she gave him a small smile in response. 

“And I was sitting on my mother’s couch with an armful of snoring Saint Bernard—” 

“Holy shit, Chewie’s still _alive?_ How old is that dog?” 

“I’m pretty sure he’s immortal. Anyway, I watched that episode and something just clicked. I started typing notes into my phone, and a few months later those notes became ‘Across the Stars’. An exercise in taking a fuck-up like Matt and figuring out what it would take for him to atone for everything he’d done and earn grace with the woman he’d loved. It got a lot bigger than I ever expected it to.” 

“You mean the readership?”

“I mean the fact that it turned into a love story,” Ben said, and his gaze slipped away from hers. “It was supposed to be more of a psychological study, charting the path to redemption and atonement. The first chapters are a little harsh because of that. But in the end I think I wanted to try to give Matt and Kira a happy ending, considering how badly… well. You know.” 

“Yeah,” Rey said quietly. “I know.” 

“And then it started gaining traction. People enjoyed it for some reason. Which made me feel almost… fulfilled, in a way I’d never been when I was writing professionally in L.A. Then one day one of my followers tipped me off that some crazy anti was reading it and liveblogging their reactions.” He turned their clasped hands over in Rey’s lap. “And here we are.”

“Here we are,” Rey echoed, staring at their hands. 

Ben hesitated, stroking his thumb over the back of her hand. “Can I ask you a question?” 

“You just did.” 

“Why the anti stuff?” he continued, ignoring her. “All of that hate, coming down on people who were just trying to—” 

Rey tugged her hand away from his and settled into a defensive posture, watching him with wary eyes. 

“It was so unlike you,” Ben murmured. “I think that’s part of why I didn’t know it was you at first. I couldn’t believe it. Didn’t want to, maybe, that that’s where you’d ended up. The whole time we were apart, I kept telling myself, it doesn’t matter how bad things are for me, as long as Rey’s okay, she’s probably in art school, doing something, living her best life...”

“You mean like you were?” Rey shot back. “I did the same thing you did: I existed. I survived. We both found shitty ways to do that. Ways that ended up hurting other people in the process.” 

Ben gave her a wry smile. “We couldn’t have fucked this up more if we’d tried, huh.” 

“I don’t know,” Rey said, returning his smile with a hint of her own. “We haven’t caught up to Matt and Kira yet. At least we only _emotionally_ stabbed each other.” 

“Maybe we should get laser swords and finish the rest.” 

“You’re assuming I don’t already own one.” 

“I know you do.” 

Rey’s smile widened at that despite herself, and she leaned back in her chair. “What else do you want to ask?”

“Do you really have a heart emoji shortcut on your keyboard?”

Rey gave him a strange look. “What?”

“One of the online conversations,” Ben clarified. “You sent a heart and panicked, remember?”

“Oh, that.” Rey shook her head in disbelief. “Seriously? Of course I don’t. ‘Isobel’ was just starting to have some squishy feelings for ‘Kylo’ and played it off like a joke to avoid dealing with it.” 

Ben nodded, and Rey’s heart dropped. Hadn’t she explained that part when she’d messaged him last night? Okay, not the heart emoji thing, but that ‘Isobel’ had…

He hadn’t read them, then. 

Well.

Maybe that was a good thing, for now.

“Are you still planning to update your fic by Valentine’s Day?” Rey asked, remembering. “You promised.” 

Ben swore under his breath. “I forgot,” he said. “This past week has been rough.” 

“Tell me about it. Do you still have your notes?”

Ben stared at her. “I… yes,” he said. “I’ve been having a hard time figuring out how the story ends, though. Why?”

Rey bit her lip, staring at a point somewhere past his head. “I’d be willing to go through them with you,” she said after a moment. “Maybe between the two of us we can figure it out and finish the damn thing.”

She met Ben’s incredulous gaze and shrugged. “We did it with your novel,” she pointed out. “And that sold like gangbusters. Or so a bunch of MattKiras kept telling me. They’re persistent, I’ll give them that.” 

Ben was still staring at her. “You’re serious?” 

“I think so.” 

“I…” Ben shook his head, brow furrowed. “You still want to do this? After everything?” 

Rey stood, stretching and not meeting his eyes. “You fucked everything up with us,” she said bluntly. “We lost our happy ending. And I’d bet anything you won’t be able to figure out how to get Matt and Kira to theirs without my help.” She crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a pointed look. “And they deserve it.” 

Still staring. 

And oh God she recognised that look in his eyes. 

It was the same look he’d given her when they’d both been drenched in champagne and she was being hauled across a ballroom, their eyes meeting one last time, or so she thought.

The same look he’d given her when she was sick in bed on her birthday and he’d leaned over to kiss her forehead.

The same look the first time they’d made love, when he managed to stop kissing her long enough to pull back and stare at her, and she could swear she saw his heart in his eyes. 

The same look that had come with a ring and a promise, that last time.

_Where was Maz and her worksheets when she needed them._

*****

“There’s a publishing industry reception my mother is strong-arming me into tonight,” Ben said as he walked with her to the front of the shop. “But we can start working on it first thing tomorrow morning. It’s going to take a miracle to get this thing out in less than a week.” 

Rey shrugged as she buttoned her coat. “We’ve done more with less.” 

“You want an editing credit, then? Your anti friends would love that.” 

She’d told him she was deleting her blog.

One more strike against him reading her messages.

Still probably a good thing. 

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Rey said evenly. She pulled out her phone and opened the transit app, grimacing. “Fuck. I just missed my bus, and the next one’s not for half an hour. The weekend schedule is a fucking nightmare.” 

She could feel Ben hesitating next to her. “Wait here,” he said, and she watched as he walked to the middle bay, where Luke had a Taurus up on the lift. The two of them spoke quickly, Ben gesturing to Rey, Luke giving him a knowing grin and Ben raising his head in a way that Rey knew meant he was rolling his eyes in exasperation. 

Amazing how she could still tell exactly what he was doing just from the back of his head, she thought, and her heart warmed in her chest.

Rey frowned at it, idly poking her sternum. _You. Knock that off._

Ben came back with a set of keys in his hand. “I can give you a ride,” he said, “if you want. Luke’s agreed to pay you for the rest of the day.”

Rey shot him an amused glance. “He agreed, or you told him?”

“Same difference.” Ben said. He paused, then looked at the keys in his hand and shrugged before tossing them to her. 

Rey frowned at him and caught them one-handed. There was a familiar fob attached as she laid the keys out in her palm. 

“I took her around the block yesterday,” Ben said. “Just to make sure the engine was running smoothly after all the work I did on it. But other than that, she’s been waiting for you, I think. If you’d like to do the honours.” 

A slow grin spread across Rey’s features, and she closed her hand around the keys, staring out the shop window to the Falcon. 

She glanced back to Ben, who was watching her warily, almost as if he was anticipating her rejection, a sharp word, _something._

 _Affection,_ she thought, and let herself feel it even as it frightened her.

_Gratitude._

_Joy._

*****

The Falcon drove better than she ever had, and Rey shifted gears easily as she drove her and Ben back to her apartment. “You know,” she said, “it occurred to me that you may have had me drive just because you don’t know where I live.” 

“That would be practical. Where are you living these days, anyway?”

“I’ve been sharing a place with Finn for awhile,” Rey said in a distracted voice as she eyed the sign for her exit. “Although God knows the last time he was even there. He and Poe are all but joined at the hip.” 

“Poe Dameron? They worked out?”

“Been together almost as long as we were at this point, if you can believe it.” Rey shot him a brief smile as she slowed and entered the exit lane, but it faded as Ben swore under his breath, typing something into his phone. “You okay?” 

“Yeah,” he said gruffly. “Lawyer stuff.” 

Rey frowned. “Snoke?”

“He owes me some serious back pay because of all the contract bullshit. _Shadow and Fate_ did really well, and I’m missing tons of royalties from my TV work. I wasn’t even going to pursue it, but then Snoke…” He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “He’s not happy I left, to put it mildly. It’s been nonstop threats and demands for the past year. Not even just to me, to my mother, too. He’s made it clear I’m going to pay up one way or another.” 

“Fuck.” 

“Yeah.” 

“Well,” Rey said, slowing and signaling her turn as she pulled up to her apartment building, “if I had to put money on a fight between Snoke and your mother…” 

“My mother _and_ her lawyers.”

“Goddamn,” Rey swore as she pulled into a parking space, patting the Falcon’s dashboard lovingly. “Save something for the vultures.” 

*****

Rey had gone on exactly two dates in the last three years. Mostly at Finn’s urging, coworkers of his that he swore were nice guys, she’d like them, really. Both of them had ended with her standing in the doorway to her apartment, not speaking to her hapless date, unsure of what she was supposed to do next. 

There was something amusing to the fact that she was now in the same position with her ex-fiancé, who had his hands in his pockets as Rey fumbled for her keys and wasn’t quite sure where to look. 

“Did you…” Rey gestured awkwardly. “…want to come in? For a cup of coffee or something?”

Ben pulled his phone from his pocket and frowned. “It’s already three,” he said. “I should probably head back to help the caterers start setting up.”

“…oh.” It sounded almost forlorn, and Ben’s face fell. 

“Maybe just one cup,” he amended.

*****

“Absolutely fucking _not.”_

Rey was glaring over Ben’s shoulder as she looked at his phone, and he swiped to close the notes app. “It’s not set in stone,” he said defensively.

“Delete that shit. Now.” 

“You never delete drafts, you never know when you’re going to…”

“You are _not_ killing Matt.” Rey thumped her coffee mug down on the table in front of her, ignoring the droplets that splashed onto her hand. “Why would you even _consider_ that?” 

Ben made a noise of frustration in the back of his throat. “Then you tell me how Matt can manage to atone for everything he’s done without paying for it. Isn’t a heroic sacrifice a good end? He goes out saving Kira, he brings balance to the galaxy, he’s at peace for once…” 

Rey stood abruptly, carrying her coffee to the kitchen and not looking at him. “You’re a fucking idiot, Ben Solo,” she called back to him. 

He followed, standing with his hands braced against the doorway to the kitchen and giving her a long-suffering stare. “You’re angry,” he observed. 

“Fucking brilliant deduction, Sherlock.” Rey spun to face him. “Think about what’s wrong with your scenario.” 

“Matt goes to fight his father…”

“Right, that part’s fine.”

“He gets brutalised in the process but he buys time for the final push the alliance needs to take out his army…”

“Still fine,” Rey said, opening the refrigerator and staring at its contents. 

“Kira shows up, she and Matt stand together and manage to defeat the emperor.” 

“Awesome.” 

“They share one last kiss, and Matt dies at peace in Kira’s arms, having finally redeemed himself and facing the light for the first time in years. Kira carries on the flame of humanity and his memory with her as she helps the galaxy heal moving forward.” 

Rey slammed the refrigerator door shut. _“That._ That’s your happy ending? Fuck you. Get rid of it.” 

Ben sighed and ran one hand through his hair. “Draft some ideas for me and we can discuss it.” 

“We’re not discussing a damn thing. Matt lives.” 

“But—”

 _“No.”_ Rey stepped forward and stabbed him in the chest with her finger. “You know what’s wrong with you? You’ve done such a good job of understanding Kira thus far. You figured it out, that she and Matt needed each other, they couldn’t exist without each other. And you’re taking that away from her! You’re leaving her _alone._ All the apologies in the fucking world don’t mean anything if he still leaves in the end.” 

“It’s not—”

Rey shook her head in disgust and pushed past him on her way back to the living room. _“Idiot.”_

Ben pulled his phone from his pocket. “It’s getting late,” he said after a moment. “I really should get back to help with the caterers. Tomorrow, okay?” He hesitated, then reached out to take Rey’s hand.

She glared at him, but relented and squeezed it back. 

Ben nodded and tried to pull his hand away, staring at Rey in confusion as she refused to let go. She was staring at a spot on the carpet, frowning, refusing to meet his gaze. “Rey?”

“You still don’t get it, do you,” she murmured. “What losing Matt a second time would do to Kira.” 

Ben stared at her, but remained silent. 

“She just got him back,” Rey continued, still not looking at him. “And maybe she doesn’t forgive him. Maybe she never can, not totally.”

She took a deep breath. “But fuck it, she loves him anyway. You don’t get to pick something like that. And you sure as fuck don’t usually get a second chance when you find the person who’s your fucking soulmate, who understands you when no one else does. And you’re going to take that away from her? Again?”

“Maybe Matt thinks she’d be better off getting to live a life without him and the memories of everything he's done to her,” Ben said quietly, glancing down at their joined hands. 

“Because that worked out so well last time?” Rey asked, and she knew her voice was bordering on hysterical but fuck it, it had been a long few years… for Kira. “Because she looked so happy in the season finale? All of the other times he left her, the times she couldn’t stay? Imagine her knowing that this time, he _really_ isn’t coming back. This time it’s for good.” 

Ben’s eyes were dark as he looked at her then, and Rey unwittingly took a step towards him. “She deserves better,” he said in a low voice. 

“Maybe you should let her decide that, for once in your life,” Rey said, gripping his hand tightly. “Besides, it’s not about deserving, remember?” 

Ben swallowed hard. “I thought of you when I wrote that.” 

“Yeah, I figured that out.” She managed a weak smile even as her throat constricted around the lump rising in it. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. 

She was ready to rip off the Band-Aid. 

“I have one more question,” Rey said. “Something I forgot to ask at the shop. Was afraid to, honestly.”

Ben was very close, and she forced herself to open her eyes and meet his gaze. 

“I read your messages,” he said, before she could even ask. “Last night.”

Rey’s eyes widened. “Then why did you—”

“You’re not the only one figuring all of this out,” Ben murmured. “It’s fucking terrifying. And you’re right: I fucked everything up.” 

“That’s what you got out of that?” Rey frowned. 

“Well…” He hesitated, and Rey’s breath caught as he gingerly rested his free hand on her hip. “That and how I hadn’t realised just how much Rey really should have been Solo.” 

Rey managed a weak smile. “That better have hurt.” 

“Like a knife to the ribs.” He dropped his forehead to hers, and before Rey quite knew what she was doing, she was sliding one hand into his hair, closing her eyes at the feel of the thick, silky strands against her fingers. “And the rest of it?”

“Hm?”

“Did you mean it?” 

Rey hesitated. 

_What are your instincts telling you?_

Run. 

Fight. 

_Run…_

She slid her hand down to lie against Ben’s cheek, and before she could hesitate, before she could think, pressed her lips firmly against his and held him fast.

He tensed, just for a moment, before he was pulling their clasped hands up between them, wrapping his free arm around her waist and hoisting her up, tilting his head and deepening the kiss. 

The fingertips of the hand on his cheek were damp, and the kiss muffled something between a laugh and a sob deep in Rey’s throat as they simultaneously adjusted, Ben putting both arms around her and pulling her off her feet, into his arms, Rey wrapping her legs around his waist and tugging at his hair. 

_Healing,_ she thought as they breathed together, as Ben’s hands cradled the small of her back, as he held her close. 

_Happiness,_ as she could swear she heard him laugh as he swung her around and deposited her on the couch, not breaking the kiss. 

_Hope._

_Love._


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter earns and arguably pushes the 'M' rating. I think it's fine, but. Well. There is some sex. (You'll NEVER GUESS WHO) 
> 
> This is also Part I of the last chapter, which continues in 12 and is then concluded in 13, the epilogue. 
> 
> We're almost there. Hold on tight.

Rey had forgotten what Ben’s kiss felt like when she’d dreamed of him, of Matt and Kira on a fog-choked forest moon the night before the 24th, before she’d even known that he’d fallen back into her life. In the moment, even in the dream, it had been a realisation of profound loss, that something she’d taken so for granted as an immutable part of her life — easy kisses coming around the pass in the kitchen, waking up next to Ben’s grumpy morning face and kissing him into slow consciousness, lazy kisses after they’d made love and lay tired and sated in each other’s arms — would fade so easily as the years turned.

Kissing him now, her arms wound around his neck, Rey couldn’t quite imagine how she’d ever forgotten this, the way Ben’s body covered hers, his large hands gentle and grasping all at once, soft lips plucking at her own and coaxing her into something deeper. 

She’d been the first girl he’d ever kissed, he’d told her once, abashed, and the first girl he’d ever made love to. Rey suddenly wondered who might have touched him like this, kissed him like this during his time in L.A., and she wrapped her legs tighter around his waist, slid her tongue into his mouth and tugged on his hair. 

“That,” Ben said against her lips, and she could feel him smile, “is your jealous cling.” 

Rey harrumphed and dug one of her heels into the small of his back. “No it’s not. I have never been jealous a single day in my life.” 

“Hm.” Ben ducked his head and sucked at the soft spot beneath her jaw. “Not even at the company holiday party? 2015? The cute brunette dressed like Santa’s helper who kept finding me by the punch?” 

Rey growled low in her throat. “All I—” Her breath hitched as Ben nipped at the hollow of it. “—did was hug you.” 

“You climbed me like a tree right there in the middle of the hall and stared at her like a pissed off koala from somewhere around my shoulders.” 

“Yeah, well, maybe I didn’t want anyone else nibbling on my eucalyptus,” Rey grumbled. She tugged his head back to stare into his eyes. “And I know I can’t say anything this time, we were broken up when you were in L.A., we’re not even together now, but if you… with someone else...” She trailed off, frowning. 

“Ah.” He nodded in sudden realisation, resting his forehead against hers. “There was no one else,” he said, and Rey closed her eyes as he leaned down to kiss her again, a soft, slow press of his lips to hers. “Not before. Not after. Not ever.” 

Rey leaned into his kiss, letting her legs settle on either side of his hips and sliding her hands down his broad back. “Good,” she murmured, and it was selfish, it wasn’t particularly fair, but, well, some things were worth holding onto and being just a little selfish with. 

She knew that better than anyone.

“Next time, just ask, okay? No more equivocating, no more circling each other.” He pulled back, bracing his weight above her on one arm. “Those rules we had at the shop? Honesty? Communication? I think we should keep those.” 

“Good idea,” Rey nodded. She threaded her fingers through Ben’s hair and tugged, but he stayed put, staring down at her with dark eyes, curving his free hand around her cheek and stroking his thumb over her cheekbone. “Ben?”

“Just looking at you,” he said in a soft voice. “You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve had this same dream, how many times I woke up swearing I could still feel you in my arms.” 

Rey closed her eyes and turned her face in against his hand, laying her own against it. “Me too,” she managed. A tear slipped down her cheek, and he brushed it away. “God, Ben, I missed you so much. Every single day. Even when I didn’t know it, even when I didn’t want to put a name to why I felt so fucking awful all the time.” 

She opened her eyes and rose up, winding her arms back around him and tugging him down so the length of his body was flush against hers. Ben made a strangled noise in his throat as he stroked his hand down her side, fingertips brushing the underside of her breast. “Rey,” he murmured, “do you…”

Rey sighed impatiently and flipped him onto his back on the couch, stripping her T-shirt off over her head and attempting to keep her breathing steady as she sat back on her heels, bared to the waist. 

Oh, she’d keep the look in his eyes then imprinted in her memory, so much like the first time he’d seen her bare breasts, hunger and want in the darkening of his pupils. 

But it was different now. Then, she’d been shy, newly-naked and staring down at the man she was just learning how to love. He’d been nervous, cupping her breasts and pressing unsure kisses to their soft weight, murmuring her name against her skin.

Now, it felt like the easiest thing in the world, even with three years of distance between them, and before she knew it she was straddling Ben’s lap, his arms tight around her, hands splayed against the small of her back as he ducked his head and drew one nipple into his mouth with a satisfied groan. She stroked his hair, rolling her hips against his as her breath came in soft, short pants. 

“Do you remember what you told me? Online?” Ben asked, and Rey shivered at the feel of the words, the rumble of his voice against her breast. “That one time, what you liked about the story? Something to keep in the back of my mind?”

Rey’s head spun as he rolled her nipples between his fingers with practised ease, just the way he knew she liked it, and she threaded her fingers through his hair and _pulled._ “I liked a lot of things,” she breathed. “Which part?” 

His eyes were even darker, pupils blown wide, and Rey squeaked in surprise as she was pushed back to the couch and unceremoniously dragged one-handed to the edge of it, Ben kneeling on the floor beside her. “Tell me to stop,” he said, and his voice was rough, uneven, “and I promise, Rey, I don’t care where we are, I don’t care how close, say one word and we’ll—”

“Do you remember when I told you you talk too much?” Rey asked, rolling her eyes. 

She stared down at Ben, her breath hitching as he undid the button and fly on her jeans, tugging them and her underwear down her hips. “Wait,” she said, panicked, rising up on her elbows. 

Ben pulled away from her as if she’d burned him, staring at her with wide eyes even as his chest rose and fell with heavy, uneven breaths. 

Rey flushed, clenching her thighs together. “It’s just,” she began awkwardly, “it’s been awhile since I’ve done anything. Like this.” 

Ben stared at her. 

“And when it’s been awhile since you’ve done… anything, sometimes you aren’t as. Well. Detail-oriented.” 

He was still staring, resting his chin against the edge of the couch. 

“And it’s winter…” 

A look of comprehension then, and his gaze turned flat, amused.

“I haven’t shaved in like a week, is my point, so I’d understand if you didn’t want to…”

Rey’s voice died on a strangled gasp as Ben hauled her legs up over his shoulders and kissed her inner thigh. 

“I haven’t tasted you in three years,” he said. He pressed one large hand to her belly to hold her steady as he licked a slow, flat stripe up her centre, and she jolted off the couch. “Believe me. I want to.” 

Rey could only nod then, and her hands shook as she tangled them in his hair, as the living room was filled with the wet, filthy sounds of his mouth against her hot flesh, as Ben stroked her hip with gentle fingers and delved into her with eager lips and tongue, dark eyes staring up at her. 

In one of the last moments of clarity she had before he found just the right spot and _sucked,_ before he slid his fingers inside her, before she arched up off the couch and fell to pieces, biting at the back of her hand, Rey felt a pronounced moment of triumph. 

She _knew_ no one who ate pussy that good could be all bad.

*****

They’d barely made it to her bed in the end, after Ben had brought her to two blinding-white orgasms with his mouth and hands and then carried her bridal-style, naked and loose-limbed, to her bedroom, murmuring praise to her, how good she was, how beautiful, how strong. 

He’d started to tuck her in when Rey had grasped his arm, staring up at him with narrowed eyes. “What about you?” she asked. 

Ben had stroked her hair, and Rey knew what he was going to say then, something about this being all about her, he didn’t need her to touch him, some noble, selfless bullshit that still ended with his dick staying in his pants instead of in _her._

She’d had three years in that state, okay. She was pretty well over it now.

Fortunately, Ben had gotten the message when she’d growled and pulled him to her by his belt, and now he was rising above her, taking her hips in his big hands and pressing into her with slow, progressively deeper strokes. 

But Rey’s initial bravery failed her at that first tight push, and she shook as she clung to his back, breathing hard and closing her eyes. 

“You okay, sweetheart?” she heard him murmur, kissing her temple. When she didn’t answer, he pulled back, frowning. “Rey.” His thumb brushed over one of her closed eyelids. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong? Am I hurting you?”

“No,” Rey managed, shaking her head and trying not to cry. “It’s not… I’m afraid if…”

_I’m afraid if I open my eyes you’ll disappear._

_I’m afraid that I’ll wake up._

_I’m afraid that none of this is real and somehow I’ll still be alone at the end and…_

A light, gentle touch of her cheek, a slow caress, and Rey opened her eyes. 

Ben’s own cheeks were damp, his eyes shining. “Still with me?” he asked, and Rey nodded, forcing herself to keep her gaze steady on his as she twined their fingers together.

“Always,” she whispered.

He leaned down and kissed her as he slid deeper, until his hips rested against hers and he began to thrust slowly into her, easing his free hand into the space between them to stroke her with gentle fingertips. 

Rey’s breath came in shallow pants as she rolled her hips against Ben’s touch, as he moved faster, deeper. It felt endless, with him deep inside her, her arms and legs twined around him, and in this moment she could almost pretend that it was forever, it was real this time, they would never have to be alone again...

“Ben,” she gasped, biting his sweat-slicked shoulder and feeling another wave beginning to crest. Close, she was so close, _again…_

His hips were stuttering, his back bowed, the way it always did when he was on the verge of coming, and Rey clung to him. “I love you,” she heard in her ear, guttural, choked. “God, Rey, I love you so much, I never stopped.” 

She dug her nails into his back on a sob as she came in a rush, as Ben wrapped his arms around her, his tears and sweat damp against her shoulder as he dropped his head to it and held her tight, hips rocking shallowly into her. 

They were both breathing hard, but as Ben pulled back to stare at her, Rey’s heart fell at the look in his eyes. 

_Fear,_ she thought, even as her pulse pounded wildly and her skin tingled in the wake of her own orgasm. _Worry. Regret?_

No… fuck, not _regret,_ anything but…

“I’m sorry,” Ben said, ducking his head and running his thumb over her lips. “I wanted that to last a lot longer than it did.”

…oh.

“It’s okay,” Rey said, and she could feel the soft, sated smile starting to form on her lips. She ran her toes across the small of his back. “I know you usually have more stamina than that. It’s been awhile for both of us.”

He nodded, stroking a few sweat-slicked strands of hair away from her brow. “And.” He hesitated. “The other thing,” he said after a moment. “I didn’t want to — you can pretend it was just an in the moment thing if…”

Rey rolled her eyes, but there was a lingering affection to it. She rose up on her elbows and kissed him, a slow, clinging drag of lips and tongue. 

_What a pair we are,_ she thought, not for the first time. 

“If you take ‘that’ back,” Rey said, grasping his chin in her hand, “after putting me through hell for three years, after leaving me behind, after lying to me, after I already told _you_ I still love you, and while _you still have your dick in me, Benjamin Solo—”_

Ben dropped his head to her shoulder again, his shoulders trembling. Rey sighed, stroking a hand through his sweaty hair. 

Her eyes narrowed as she realised he was _laughing._ “Oh, you son of a…” 

“You really are Kira, aren’t you,” he managed, kissing her cheek and shaking his head. He stroked his thumb over her hipbone as he pulled out with a soft groan. “There. And I _still_ love you. Even when you’re being a pain in the ass.” 

“Talk to me like that and I’ll never let you come in me again. Asshole.” 

“…oh fuck.” Ben’s eyes widened, and he glanced down to where his come was slowly seeping out of her. “Shit, do we have to go pick up…”

Rey waved her hand carelessly. “I stayed on the Pill, after,” she said. “It was easier not having periods, even with the mood swings.” 

“Oh.” Ben was quiet, staring at her. 

Rey watched him expectantly. “Yes?”

“Did you… with anyone...” 

Ah.

She rose up, draping her arms over his shoulders and resting her forehead against his. 

“Not before,” she repeated his words from earlier, nuzzling into him and giving him a soft smile. “Not after. Not ever.”

*****

 _“Fuck,”_ Ben swore, running a hand through his still-wet hair as he glanced at his phone. 

Rey gave him a quizzical stare as she walked out of the bathroom, tugging a clean T-shirt over her head. “What’s up?”

He tossed her his phone, which was lit up with notifications of twelve missed calls from the same number. “I was supposed to help with the caterers, remember? Ma must be frantic.”

“Tell her you were eating something else,” Rey said, catching the wet towel he threw at her and tossing his phone back to him. 

_“Rey.”_

“Hey, for the record, I heard that joke _from_ your mother a few years back.” 

“Ugh.” Ben grimaced as he dialed and set his phone to speaker. Rey sat next to him on the couch, and he pulled her into his arms, nosing at her cheek like an adoring puppy as she rolled her eyes but settled closer. 

_“Benjamin?”_ his mother’s raspy voice came on the second ring, and Rey swallowed hard at the familiar sound of it. _“Where are you? Are you okay? Are you taking something again, are you in trouble? Fuck the catering, fuck the event, if you’re—”_

“Ma, I’m okay,” Ben interrupted. “I’m with Rey.”

There was a long moment of silence. 

Then: 

_“Is that a euphemism for something?”_

Ben coughed loudly, shooting a glare at Rey as she muffled a giggle against his shoulder.

“No, it’s—” 

_“For God’s sake, Ben, just leave a sock on the doorknob like everyone else — didn’t your father teach you anything? Well, not that he ever did that, if I had a dollar for every time I came home and he was just lying in bed wearing nothing but a smile…”_

Rey’s giggles burst into full-throated laughter at the pure scandal written all over Ben’s face, the deep crimson flush rising to his cheeks, and his mother’s voice trailed off. 

_“Was that a girl’s laugh I just heard now?”_ she asked after a moment, and Rey’s heart constricted in her chest. Even with all of her practice in identifying emotions, Leia Organa-Solo was a tough nut to crack, and there were a million things that flat tone could mean, everything from annoyance to fury to heart-stopping elation. 

“Uh, hi, M…” It was Rey’s turn to flush, the unspoken _‘mum’_ dying on her tongue. She wasn’t Rey’s future mother-in-law anymore, wasn’t a member of her family through her son. “Mrs. Organa-Solo. Leia. Um.” She glanced helplessly at Ben. “What do I call her now?” she whispered. 

Another long pause. _“I know that can’t be Rey, Benjamin,”_ she said evenly. _“Not_ **_my_ ** _Rey, who would know better than to call me anything other than ‘Mom,’ even if my son is an idiot and made that a bit difficult for more than a few years.”_

Rey swallowed hard, and Ben hugged her tighter, kissing her forehead as her tears threatened to spill over. “Hi, Mum,” she managed. “I missed you. A lot.” 

*****

Rey stayed cradled in Ben’s embrace as Leia alternately spoke to Rey in gentle, maternal tones and yelled at her son.

“You knew she was working at Luke’s, for Christ’s sake, Ma,” Ben grumbled, toying with the damp ends of Rey’s hair as she lay sprawled across his chest. “We were bound to run into each other at some point.” 

_“Remind me to kick my pothead brother’s ass the minute I see him.”_

“You always say that.”

_“It’s a standing order. And Benjamin, I swear to God, if you hurt that girl again—”_

“It’s not like that, Mrs… Mum,” Rey amended, glancing up at Ben. “We still have a lot of things to talk about before we make any decisions about… anything.”

Ben frowned at her, and she averted her gaze. 

_“All right,”_ Leia said after a moment, _“but remind him that he’s not too big for me to take him over my knee.”_

“I’d pay to see that,” Ben said, rolling his eyes. 

_“Oh, did he tell you about the publishing event tonight, Rey? Nothing too formal, just celebrating some milestones from the last quarter, but if you wanted to come, you’d be welcome, of course. We’d love to have you.”_

“I appreciate that. Um.” Rey bit her lip, avoiding Ben’s curious stare. “I’ll let you know, okay?”

She climbed off Ben’s lap and glanced back over her shoulder as he murmured his goodbyes to his mother, his eyes not leaving her as she walked into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator, downing half its contents without looking. 

“Hey.” Ben called from the doorway of the kitchen, frowning. “You okay?”

Rey nodded, clutching the bottle in one hand. “Yeah. Maz is going to kill me, though,” she sighed. “Just yesterday we were talking about how I wasn’t ready for any of this, and this morning she was already worried when I told her that I’d messaged you on Tumblr. And now…” She gestured. “Not only did I run into you, but, God, we fucked, _twice,_ and I’m calling your mother ‘mum’ again and getting invited to things? What the fuck are we doing, Ben?” She thumped the bottle down and turned her back to him, bracing her arms against the counter.

Ben’s frown deepened, and he walked over to her and laid his hands on her shoulders, turning her back to face him. “I don’t know what we’re doing, but I do know we’re not doing that,” he said pointedly. “We’re not pretending this wasn’t something. We’re not going to rewrite it and go back. Okay?” 

Rey closed her eyes and nodded, letting him pull her into a tight hug. “Fear,” she mumbled to herself against his shoulder. “Insecurity. Anxiety.”

Ben pulled back, eyeing her curiously. “What?”

Rey flushed, staring down at her toes. “It’s something Maz has me doing,” she said. “Identifying emotions so I can be honest with myself about what I’m feeling and face them head-on. Something like that.” 

Ben nodded. “That’s smart, actually. You’ve always had a hard time with negative emotions. Usually you just bury them or run away from them.”

Rey gave him a flat stare, and he rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, I know,” he muttered. “I’m not much better.” 

“She wants us in couples’ counseling,” Rey murmured. “If this turns into something.” 

Ben stared at her. “When did you even have time to talk to her about that? Considering we’ve been…” He hesitated. 

“Wednesday,” she said. “When I went back and told her you’d magically reappeared and we started to work through what all of that meant.” Rey gave him a weak smile. “She said she’d always known you’d come back one day. I guess she knew more than either of us.” 

“I’ll say.” Ben shook his head. “Couples’ counseling?”

“It’s not a bad idea,” Rey pointed out. “If we want to try again. And.” She hesitated, taking a deep breath. “I think I might.”

Ben stared at her, then nodded. “Yeah,” he murmured. “I might, too.” He took Rey’s hands in his, stroking his thumbs over the backs of them. “And fuck it, counseling is probably a good idea. I’ve talked about us with Dr. Holdo over the years, the good times, the bad times, and she’s called us… I believe ‘the worst communicators on the planet’ were her exact words.” 

“She and Maz should go for drinks.” 

“But I want to be better,” Ben continued, fingers still playing over the backs of Rey’s hands. “I want…” He paused, swallowing hard and meeting her eyes. “I want to try to build something again with you. We can go slow, we don’t have to put labels on anything, fuck, we can just try existing in each other’s orbit for a little while if that’s easier.” 

“But you still love me.” Rey was staring up at him, her heart in her throat, and she squeezed his hands. 

“I still love you,” he affirmed. 

“And you’re not going anywhere,” she murmured.

“Not going anywhere.” He pulled her into a tight hug, kissing the crown of her head. “Unless you want me to go.”

Rey nodded, closing her eyes and pressing closer. “I think you should probably go by yourself tonight,” she said after a moment, squeezing Ben as he stiffened beneath her. “Just for tonight. I need a little time and space to think. This is… it’s a lot. This morning I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. And now…” 

“I know.” Ben sighed. “It still feels like some weird fever dream.”

“No kidding.”

“And it’s probably better if you have a night to yourself instead of immediately having to field Ma on top of everything else.” 

Rey gave him a weak smile. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love her, but…”

“Yeah, I know.” He raised her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “Are we still on for tomorrow morning?”

“Damn straight,” Rey said, narrowing her eyes a little. “We’re finishing those chapters if it kills you.”

“I appreciate your willingness to sacrifice me to the cause,” Ben observed, and there was a hint of amusement in his eyes. “Nine work for you?”

Rey made a face at him. “Since when are you up that early?”

“Since the prospect of a day with you came with it.” 

“I have to work.” 

“I’ll take care of that.” He nudged her shoulder, giving her that impossible puppy-dog look that made her weak in the knees. “I’ll bring breakfast.” 

That was almost cheating — he _knew_ that food was her one true weakness. “Chocolate-chip pancakes?” Rey asked hopefully. 

“You drive a hard bargain,” Ben said, kissing her cheek. “Deal.”

*****

The sun was setting through the large bay window at the end of the hall, red-orange light contrasting with the harsh glow of the fluorescent bulbs overhead. 

Rey wrapped her arms around herself as she leaned against the doorway, biting her lip and glancing up at Ben. 

He was lingering. 

So was she. 

“Nine, then,” he said, for the fifth or sixth time, neither of them making any attempt to move. 

“Nine,” Rey repeated. 

Another long, awkward pause, and it reminded her of their first date, when he’d brought her home after a pleasant lunch and God he’d _shaken her hand._

No wonder it had taken them two fucking months to kiss. 

“I’m going to call Maz,” Rey said, thrusting her hands into her pockets. “Want me to see if she has anything this week?” 

“Sounds good.” Ben hesitated before reaching out and sliding his fingers into her hair, and Rey rose up on tiptoe to kiss him. “I promise I’m coming back for you this time,” he murmured, and he rubbed at the hand Rey instinctively shot out to cling to the back of his shirt. “Text me your new number?” 

She nodded, releasing her grasp one finger at a time, her hand lingering against his. “Nine,” she said. “You promise?”

“I promise.” He kissed her again, and then he was gone. 

Rey closed the door behind her as soon as he was out of sight, sliding down against it and drawing her knees up to her chest.

After a minute, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, dialing a familiar number. It rang several times, then:

_“You’ve reached the voicemail of Maz Kanata. If this is a true emergency, please contact your local emergency room and…”_

Rey waited as Maz’s long spiel continued, taking a deep breath as she finally heard the telltale beep at the end of it.

“Hey, Maz, it’s Rey,” she said, and she mentally cursed her voice for sounding so fucking unsteady. “So, about that whole couples thing…”

*****

“Whoa, what happened in here?”

Rey paused with the carton of milk halfway to her lips as the door to the apartment opened, and she peered around the corner from the kitchen to see Finn and Poe standing in the front entryway, staring in bewilderment at the state of disarray in the living room. “Um,” she began awkwardly, following their gaze to the scattered couch cushions, the trail of clothing to her bedroom (where she knew her bed had had most of its linens torn off and tossed into a haphazard pile), the multiple towels on the bathroom floor. 

Poe raised an eyebrow at her appearance and grinned. “Nice sex hair and PJs, champ,” he remarked. “What, Romeo didn’t stay to cuddle?”

“Poe,” Finn said in a warning voice, even as he blushed and couldn’t quite look at Rey. “Um, did you want us to give you and… um… your friend a minute to...”

Rey shrugged, putting the milk back in the refrigerator. “It’s fine. He left about an hour ago.”

“Fucking hell, an _hour_ ago? And the place still smells this much like sex? Are you sure he could walk? Can you?”

 _“Poe.”_ Finn rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “Sorry, Rey, we didn’t… I mean, I didn’t know you were seeing anyone. I just came by to grab a few things.” 

Rey rolled her eyes. “For God’s sake, why are you two not just living together yet?” 

_“Thank_ you,” Poe grinned. “Christ, look at us. I’m turning all domestic and long-term and you’re out here fucking random guys and sending them home without a backwards glance. That therapy must be working wonders, huh?”

“Well,” Rey said. She took a deep breath, looking at Finn. “It wasn’t… a random guy, exactly.” 

He stared at her. “Someone from work?” he asked dumbly. His eyes widened. “Oh, God, you didn’t fuck that Luke guy, did you?”

“Oh _fuck_ no.” Rey shuddered. “First of all, he’s Ben’s uncle…”

_“What?”_

“…and second, it was Ben.”

“Wait. _Wait.”_ Poe raised his hands. “You fucked _who?”_

“Fucking _what?_ Poe, are you hearing this shit?”

“I am so lost, she fucked Ben’s uncle?”

_“Are you hearing this shit!?”_

Rey walked past them, straightening the couch cushions. “Whenever you’re ready to listen,” she said, sitting down and staring at the two of them meaningfully.

*****

Rey tucked the last corner of the fresh sheet onto her bed before flopping into it with a sigh. She’d planned on spending the evening by herself, but, well, Poe and Finn’s entrance and disbelieving stares at the sound of Ben’s name had put the kibosh on that, and she’d ordered in Thai as she told them about that day’s developments, everything from Ben’s time in L.A. to. Well. The rest of it, with the two of them together.

(Poe had made a face at the couch and moved to sit on the floor when she’d gotten to _that_ part of the story. Rey had rolled her eyes and told him that it wasn’t like she hadn’t caught him and Finn together engaged in similar activities, but Poe had just muttered something under his breath about boiling the couch before reaching for a carton of drunken noodles.) 

For all Poe had a sense of humour about the whole situation, his response amounting to a shrug, a comment about his own share of good sex with bad exes, and a question about Ben taking over for her therapy payments (“I’ve seen pictures of that rock he gave you, he can damn well afford it”), Finn was quiet and distinctly unsmiling. There was something in his eyes that had unsettled Rey — not… judgment, exactly, but something close to it. 

“Did you forget everything he did to you?” he asked, resting his head in his hands and not looking at her. “That just earlier this same goddamn week you were damn near despondent because of this asshole? That you’ve spent the last three years trying to heal and move on from the _first_ round with him?”

“I’m not asking you to understand it,” Rey said, a bit stung. “I’m just asking you to trust that I know what I’m doing.” 

“Do you?” He looked sceptical. 

“He’s agreed to take it slow and go to couples’ counseling, if we decide to go that route. It’s…” She shook her head. “It’s different this time, Finn. He’s trying. We both are.” 

Finn had sighed, running a hand over his face. “Are you happy?” he asked finally. “If you’re happy, or you think you are… I can probably tolerate it. Almost. Maybe even tolerate him, for your sake.” 

She’d hugged him then, even managed a smile at Poe. “That’s all I ask,” she’d said. “We’re all just trying here right now.” 

Rey snuggled into her bed, sighing as she rolled onto her side. She’d texted Ben earlier, and he’d sent her a few pictures from the publishing event, including a shot of his mother unapologetically feeding canapes to Chewie and ignoring a dignified-looking man in a suit who was trying to get her attention. 

_Nine,_ he’d texted her not long before she’d climbed into bed. _Sleep well, sweetheart. I’ll see you in the morning._

*****

Rey made it to two a.m. before she woke in a cold sweat from nightmares of icy blue eyes, grasping hands, the smell of stale alcohol, Ben disappearing into shadows and falling away from her. 

She reached for her phone with trembling hands, swiping to unlock it and navigating to her messages before pausing. 

_I’ll see you in the morning,_ he’d said. 

What kind of start were they off to if she already couldn’t trust him? If she already was terrified that he wasn’t coming back? 

Rey took several deep breaths before rearranging her spare pillows into a warm weight against her back, curling her hands to her chest and closing her eyes. 

She’d make this work.

 _They_ would make this work.

*****

8:57. 

Rey glanced at her phone and sipped at her coffee with unsteady hands. He hadn’t texted her, and she willed her heart to stop pounding. 

(The coffee probably wasn’t helping with that one, but she was only human, okay.)

 _“Fuck.”_ A muffled curse in a familiarly-deep voice from the hallway, a loud thump through the paper-thin walls of her apartment, and Rey was on her feet, rushing to the door and removing the security chain before flinging it open. 

Ben was collecting a fallen grocery bag, two more in his arms, and he glanced up at her. “Morning,” he grumbled. “The oranges tried to escape.” 

Rey raised her eyebrows at him. “I thought you were bringing breakfast?” 

He lifted the grocery bags and leaned down to give her a chaste kiss. “Some assembly required. Give me half an hour?”

Rey took one of the grocery bags and trailed after him to the kitchen. “For your chocolate-chip pancakes,” she said meaningfully, hopping up onto the counter and twining her arms around his neck. “And _only_ for your chocolate-chip pancakes.” 

Ben smiled at her, caging her in with his arms as he ducked his head and kissed her, lingering. “What else do you want?” he asked against her lips. “Eggs? Bacon?”

His breath caught as one of her hands dipped into his waistband, and he bit her lip as she swung herself off the counter and into his arms. 

(It was noon by the time they finally had breakfast, and Rey needed to change her sheets again.) 

(Still.)

(Worth it.)

*****

“Let me make sure I’m understanding correctly,” Maz said during their Wednesday session, setting her glasses down on her desk and rubbing her eyes, sighing deeply. “Ben is not just back in your life through online messages, he is back, physically, in every sense of the word.”

“Yes.” 

“The two of you have _already_ said you love each other, and have slept together— how many times?”

“Um. A few.” 

Maz gave Rey a long-suffering look, and Rey stared at her hands. “He’s agreed to couples’ counseling,” she said after a moment. “He really wants to try to make this work. We both do.” 

She took a deep breath and looked Maz in the eye. “You always told me to listen to my gut,” she said. “That I should trust my instincts. And, at first, my instincts mostly kept telling me to run.”

Maz waited, steepling her fingers.

“But then I figured out,” Rey murmured, “those weren’t my instincts. That was my _fear._ And I’ve been listening to _that_ for the last three years. Fear and anger and bitterness and everything else.” She paused. “My _instincts_ told me to stay open-minded and hear him out. Which I finally did. And. Well.” She spread her hands out. “Here we are.” 

Maz sighed, resting her chin on her hands. “Do you think he’s serious about couples’ counseling?” she asked. “There’s still a lot of work to be done to get you two communicating effectively, and even if you’re on-board with it, it’ll take both of you to…”

“Ask him yourself,” Rey said, raising an eyebrow. “He’s in the waiting room.” 

Maz’s features softened then, and Rey could almost swear she saw a hint of a smile on her lips then. “Well then,” she said after a moment, “let’s go retrieve your Prince Not-So-Charming and see what we can do.” 

*****

Ben came into his — _their —_ first couples’ session with a fresh notebook, a briefcase full of Gottman, and a respectful handshake for Maz, who was roughly four feet shorter than him. 

“Why don’t we start with the Four Horsemen of the…” Maz stopped, worksheets in hand, as Ben flipped to a page in his workbook and looked at her expectantly. It was the same worksheet.

She shot an amused glance at Rey, who had her head in her hands and was giving Ben an exasperated look, yet one that was clearly shot through with affection just the same. 

“I think you and I are going to get along just fine,” Maz observed, smile widening.

*****

“It’s a problem with the lore,” Ben said, pushing his plate away and frowning at his laptop. “That’s the thing. I haven’t figured out a way around it yet.”

It was Thursday the thirteenth, the night before he’d promised to post Chapter 24, and he and Rey were sitting side-by-side on her couch, Ben rubbing warm circles against Rey’s bare knee as they stared at his notes. They’d already been through two drafts and discarded both of them, and it was pushing nine p.m. 

“What’s the lore here?” Rey asked, tapping his laptop screen with her finger. “It’s fanfiction. No one cares about lore.”

 _“I_ care,” Ben said, sighing and leaning back. “You wouldn’t believe how many conversations I had with the _Lost Galaxy_ story group to ensure continuity and adherence to current lore when I was getting _Shadow and Fate_ published. I can’t undo those standards.”

“If it’s a choice between ‘standards’ and finding a way to get Matt out of this alive, then fuck your standards.” Rey scowled at him, crossing her arms over her chest. “Explain it to me again? Because I swear this is so fucking dumb and if you can just break the rules and we can finally get this damn thing finished...” 

“No, it’s—” Ben cursed, running a hand through his hair. “Look.” He navigated to one of the tabs in his browser, pulling up the _Lost Galaxy_ family lineage chart. “Matt’s father is the emperor, right? Avatar of darkness, pure incarnation of evil. Basically a god. Or a preternaturally powerful demon, something like that.”

“Right.” 

He highlighted a section of the chart. “And here’s Matt’s mother, from Stormhold. She was a warrior priestess, one of their strongest, but mortal.”

“I mean, she died, so that’s kind of obvious.”

“Then here,” he said meaningfully, glancing at her sidelong, “is Kira. Orphan from the midlands. Powerful, chosen by the prophecy and all that. But fully mortal.” 

“Do we know that, though?” Rey frowned at the screen. “They haven’t revealed who her parents were yet.”

“I talked to the story group about it. They were just normal people who were killed in the war. Mortal. So,” Ben said, “we have a demigod, at best, and a mortal up against the sum total of all evil in the universe.”

“With laser swords.”

“With laser swords,” Ben acknowledged.

“And a cosmic bond that allows them to communicate telepathically. Or whatever the fuck their soulmate thing is.” 

“That helps.” 

“And the flame of humanity and just, you know, being the good guys in a story that’s _supposed_ to have a happy ending.”

“Where is that written?”

_“Ben.”_

“Fine, in a story that’s supposed to have a happy ending by Rey Rules.” 

“And that’s still not enough?” She sighed in frustration and pushed his laptop closed, leveling him with a flat stare. “Why can’t you say that they just… suddenly got more powerful? The gods intervened or whatever?” 

“That’s _deus ex machina,_ which we are _not_ doing _.”_ Ben eyed Rey as she glared at him and retrieved her sketchbook from the coffee table. He’d bought it for her the day before, and she’d already taken to drawing in it when she was frustrated with him, something Maz-approved, as long as they talked openly about what was causing the frustration.

She was pretty sure he knew this time, Rey groused, flipping her pencil and beginning to carefully shade the figure in front of her. “Walk me through _your_ version again?”

“Matt makes it to the emperor’s lair and gets battered around by his guards a bit. Kira feels it through their bond and wakes up. She’s worried…”

“No, she’s _pissed,”_ Rey pointed out, not looking at him as she reached for the new gum eraser he’d also bought. “He left her without even saying anything and now his stupid ass is in trouble and _she_ has to go and get him out of it.” 

“Fine, she’s mad, and she goes after him. Meanwhile, Sam and Nines are leading the final assault against the emperor’s army.”

“No one cares. Get back to Matt and Kira.”

“Rey, some people are reading this for the battles.”

“No they’re not."

Ben sighed, resting his head in his hands. “So that battle is happening,” he continued, “and Kira makes it to the emperor’s lair following Matt’s thoughts, and they stand and fight him together. It’s not easy, he’s more powerful, but we’ve seen them fight side-by-side, they can all but read each other’s moves, and here they’re literally fighting for their lives. Matt intercepts a shot of dark energy aimed at Kira, and the emperor pauses for a moment because, you know, he basically just killed his son…”

“I don’t think he would care,” Rey said bluntly, but she waved Ben on.

“He’s distracted long enough for Kira to land the killing blow, she cradles Matt in her arms, they kiss and confess their love, and then…” 

“God, don’t even say it, it’s so fucking depressing.” Rey sighed and rested her head back against the couch, propping her sketchbook up on her knees. “The emperor is dead, they finally have a chance to be together, and oops, Matt is dead, too. Sorry, Kira, get fucked, except not really because, again, _Matt is fucking dead.”_ She turned her head to stare at Ben, her glare softening a fraction at the defeated look in his eyes. 

“I haven’t figured out how they could win in a straight fight,” he murmured. “They’re just not strong enough.”

“Even together? Like what if they combined their powers?” 

“Remember what happened when Kira was poisoned in the southlands and Matt transferred some of his power to her to save her life? It ended up almost killing her. She’s mortal; she’s not built to channel that kind of power.” 

“It almost killed her, but it didn’t,” Rey pointed out. “Because they’re soulmates and they’re bound together. The rules are different. What if they manage to combine their powers and push back against him? Cross laser swords, stand together, do _something?”_

“I thought about that,” Ben said with a sigh. “Going by lore, it would be too much exertion. There’s a chance it would be enough to take down the emperor, but it would be mutually-assured destruction. They’d both die, too.”

“Well,” Rey said, tapping her pencil, “at least then they die together.”

Ben stared at her. “And, what, that’s _your_ happy ending? They both die? At least in mine Kira lives on and helps rebuild the galaxy.” 

“But it’s better than—”

“If you’re insisting that Matt lives, I’m insisting Kira lives.” Ben pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Fuck. This should not be this hard.” He pulled his hands away, glancing at her sketchbook. “Wait,” he said, realisation slowly dawning, “that’s…” 

Rey smiled shyly at him, handing over the sketchbook. “Chapter Three,” she said, pressing their heads together as they looked at her drawing. “When Matt shows up and Kira handcuffs him and refuses to hear his apology.” 

Ben gave a low whistle, toying with the corner of the page. “Fuck, Rey, this is… this is _amazing.”_ He grinned and curved his hand around the back of her neck, pulling her into a kiss. “How much would you charge me to have you illustrate the entire story like this? Their expressions, the lines, the shading… you nailed it.” 

He frowned, nudging Rey’s nose with his as she broke the kiss, and she turned her head to stare at her sketch. “I could do it,” she said after a moment. She took Ben’s hand and squeezed it. “I mean, I know you’re joking, but I could—” She set her jaw, and her eyes were full of determined fire when she looked at him. “I could,” she said. 

“You could,” Ben agreed. He stroked the back of her neck and held her as she curled up to his chest, still staring at her sketch. 

*****

They finally settled on a stopping point for Chapter 24: Kira arriving at the emperor’s lair and taking up arms with Matt. It left the chapter on a nail-biter of a cliffhanger, but it would buy them time to figure out how the fuck they’d get both Matt and Kira to survive to the end and let Ben publish on time. 

They were on opposite ends of the couch, working in companionable silence, Ben typing at his laptop keyboard, Rey surreptitiously sketching him as he did. Just like old times, she thought with a giddy thrill, trying to capture the look in his eyes: it was his writing look, a fierce determination and single-mindedness that fascinated her. It was different than the looks he gave her — hungry and passionate, soft and reverent. 

This was almost like a response to a challenge, a battle he was determined to win, and even the way he typed was sharp and punctuated, sword strokes in miniature as he stabbed at the keys. 

“Making good progress?” Rey ventured, shading his brow. 

“Almost done,” Ben sighed, leaning back against the arm of the couch and cracking his knuckles. “I hope none of my readers will figure out I have no idea how this fucking thing ends.”

“They haven’t yet,” Rey pointed out. She smiled at him and nudged his thigh with her toes as she set her sketchbook to the side. “Come here.” 

Ben’s gaze was tired but affectionate, and he obediently closed his laptop and made a space for Rey to curl against his body. He slung an arm over her waist and buried his face in the crook of her neck. “I’m almost going to be sorry to see it end,” he said, voice muffled against her skin. 

“Me too,” Rey said, tracing idle patterns against the back of his hand with her fingertips. “But you can always write another one. Or, hell, even another novel. _Shadow and Fate_ was successful, after all.”

Ben sighed, resting his head against hers. “I don’t know if I could ever publish again. There’s a lot of bad blood left there. Feels impossible sometimes.”

Rey turned in his arms, touching his cheek. “Me drawing again felt impossible,” she said pointedly. “You and I felt even more impossible than that. And then there’s…” She shook her head in disbelief. “Me and _MattKira.”_

Ben grinned and kissed her on the forehead. “Just admit you ship it.” 

_“No,”_ she squirmed as Ben bit her earlobe. “Oh, _fuck you,_ Ben, that’s cheating…!” 

“Don’t think I didn’t see you doing some preliminary sketches for Chapter Seven over there…”

Her attempted glare failed as she burst into laughter and slid her hands into his hair and kissed him, sighing happily. 

Ben’s phone began to vibrate on the coffee table, and she frowned, pulling back and glancing at the time laid out in digital on the cable box. “Fuck, it’s ten o’clock. Must be your mother.” 

“You can answer it. She keeps asking about you, anyway. Just don’t tell her I’m sleeping over if you don’t want her to ask about—”

“Whatever you’re going to say, I know I don’t want her to.” Rey reached out blindly and hit the answer button, switching it to speaker and snuggling into Ben’s chest.

“Hey,” Ben said, kissing the back of her head, “sorry, I know I was supposed to call earlier.” 

There was a long, pronounced pause. 

_“Yes,”_ a man’s voice said smoothly, and Ben froze, his hand tightening at Rey’s waist. _“Quite a bit earlier, Benjamin Solo.”_


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here it is. The final chapter of the main story. 
> 
> I teared up at a few points in this one. If I did my job right, hopefully some of you will, too.

Rey’s blood ran cold at the sound of that voice, the voice she’d been haunted by, though doubtless Ben had been even moreso. She clutched his hand, stroking the soft spot behind his ear. 

He had gone completely still, the way she did when she smelled alcohol and she was transported headfirst back to her childhood.“Ben,” Rey whispered. “Ben, sweetheart, can you hear me? Are you still with me?” She kept her eyes on his as she pulled her own phone from her back pocket and unlocked it one-handed.

 _“I’m surprised you answered, truthfully,”_ Snoke was saying, that smooth, calm voice that still set her teeth on edge, but Rey was only half-listening as she looked into Ben’s eyes, which had gone distant and flat, his body unmoving and inert along her own. _“I missed you at your mother’s latest little gathering this past weekend.”_

Rey narrowed her eyes at Ben, glancing at the phone. He’d _seen_ him on Saturday? And he hadn’t—

 _“Her security escorted me off the premises before we could have a very overdue discussion,”_ he continued. _“But oh yes, Benjamin. I was there.”_

Rey stroked Ben’s hair back from his brow and he finally looked at her, exhaling on a shuddery breath and pressing his forehead to hers for the space of a heartbeat before pulling back and sitting up. Rey clung protectively to his side as he picked his phone up and laid it flat in his palm. “We have nothing to discuss,” Ben said in a low voice, and Rey could feel his shoulders trembling. With rage or fear, she couldn’t tell, but she wrapped her arms around him anyway. “It’s over. Call my fucking lawyers if you have anything to say. There’s nothing you can hold over me anymore.” 

A laugh, low and dark and oily, and Rey shivered at the sound of it, holding Ben tighter. _“Is that so, ‘KyloRen’?”_

He stiffened beneath her touch, and he would have dropped the phone if Rey hadn’t caught it and set it on the coffee table. She moved to end the call, but Ben shook his head at her, grabbing her hand. 

_“Oh yes, I know about your… hobby, as it were.”_ Snoke tsked. _“So unprofessional for a writer of your calibre. Reduced to writing drivel for swooning teenage girls when you should be penning novels for that same franchise. Imagine what they’d think of you. What any industry professional would. If they knew.”_

Rey kissed Ben’s temple, squeezing his hand. He closed his eyes and leaned into her touch, and his trembling subsided, just a little. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’ve left that life behind. Do your worst. There’s nothing you can take from me anymore.” 

Snoke paused. _“Ah, there it is. That fiery spit of hope in you.”_ He sounded almost… _pleased,_ and Rey ground her teeth together. _“Just like you had there at the beginning, when I first found you. You lost it so quickly once you came to me in L.A. But then I suppose you’ve found a… ray of light in your life again, haven’t you?”_

It was Rey’s turn to freeze, staring at Ben’s phone. 

_“She’s with you, isn’t she?”_ He chuckled. _“I thought I heard that simpering voice of hers at the beginning. How are you doing these days, little Rey?”_

“Don’t you fucking say her name,” Ben seethed. 

_“I’ve said it plenty over the last year or so,”_ Snoke said, and there was a gleefulness to it that turned Rey’s stomach. _“Well, perhaps ‘said’ is too fine a point. Typed, certainly. Your sweet girl is a popular one, isn’t she? Oh, but so angry, so hurt. It was so easy to stoke that fire in her, just a few messages here and there, reminding her of who had put her there.”_

“You son of a _bitch,”_ Rey breathed, clinging to Ben’s hand. 

_“It’s a shame that you had to find out the author of the little story that was getting you so much attention was your wayward ex-fiance… and through an anonymous message, no less. Such unpleasant business, all of it. It’s just awful that he left you, isn’t it? That he left us both.”_

“What do you want, Snoke?” Ben asked, teeth clenched. “Just tell me what you fucking want.” 

_“Very simple,”_ Snoke said. _“You withdraw the lawsuits and renounce any claims to restitution. I maintain my current royalty percentage from the meagre work you created — in a contract that you, my dear boy,_ **_did_ ** _sign, after all.”_

“And if I don’t?”

 _“Then,”_ Snoke said, and the cool ease disappeared from his voice entirely, replaced by something cold, purposeful, dangerous, like the glint of a knife in cold moonlight, _“I will ruin you. Try to rebuild your career in licensed fiction with the millstone of KyloRen around your neck.”_

“I told you, I don’t—”

 _“Oh, but that’s not all, Benjamin._ **_She’ll_ ** _pay for it, too. You may not care what happens to you, but the girl… ah, that’s different, isn’t it?”_

Ben shook harder, and his eyes were blazing. “Are you _threatening_ her?”

 _“You can’t protect her,”_ Snoke said, voice once again soothing, soft. _“Oh, you can try, but you can’t be with her every minute of the day, can you? And you left her all alone for so long. Didn’t he, Rey? So thoughtless. I don’t blame you for everything you’ve done to cope with that terrible loss.”_

“Fuck you,” Rey spat, gripping her own phone tightly and glancing down at her screen. “And your fucking threats. If you think you’ll—”

“Rey.” Ben glanced at her sidelong, then closed his eyes. “Snoke. Are you listening?”

_“Of course.”_

Ben took a deep breath. “Rey means more to me than anything in the world.”

_“So touching.”_

“There is nothing I wouldn’t do to keep her safe.” 

_“A noble sentiment,”_ Snoke observed, his voice cold. _“You’ve decided, then?”_

Rey was clutching her phone so tightly that she was afraid it would break in half. She couldn’t look at him. 

_You bastard,_ she thought viciously, _if you let him do this again, if you fucking let him take you away from me_ **_again…_ **

Her mind drifted to Kira, standing alone and facing her future without Matt by her side, and she ached.

“So understand,” Ben said, his voice steady, “that when I tell you to _fuck yourself as hard as humanly possible,_ I’m saying that for her.” 

Rey’s eyes widened, and she stared at Ben, who was looking at his phone with pure hate. 

He took Rey’s hand, and she let him. 

“Because I already took one of your fucking ultimatums,” he continued in a low, dark voice, “and it almost destroyed both of us. I chose my career over her. I’ll never make that mistake again. Not for anyone, and especially not for you.” 

He reached over and hit the end call button, not taking his eyes from Rey’s. He crumpled then, falling into her arms. “Please tell me you got all of that,” he managed, breathing hard as she stroked his hair. 

Rey nodded, tapping at her phone and stopping the voice recording. “I’ve got it,” she murmured, holding him close. “I’ve got _you.”_

*****

Rey sat on the edge of her bed, her arms wrapped around the thick pillow in her lap as Ben spoke to his mother in the living room in a surprisingly even tone. 

“No, it wasn’t a number I recognised, but it’s so easy to spoof one that it’s…” He paused, listening. “But it’s not. …no, it’s not hearsay. Rey recorded the whole thing. As long as gratuitous swearing is permissible in court, it’s on record. I’ll have her send it to you and you can pass it on to your lawyers.” 

He gave Rey a soft smile from the living room, and she tried to return it, but her face crumpled, and she covered her face with her hands. 

“Believe me, I know,” she heard Ben say. “‘Lucky’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. …I won’t, not this time. Not again. I’ve already put her through too fucking much. …Ma. Ma, stop crying. Please.” 

She heard Ben’s voice falter then. “I know,” he managed. “I forgive him, too.” 

She could just barely make out his soft goodbyes, and then she heard his heavy footsteps, heard him sigh, felt the bed dip next to her and a pair of large hands cover hers and draw them away from her face. 

“Hi,” Ben said quietly. 

“Hi,” Rey managed. Her voice was raw from crying, and she stared at their clasped hands. “Is your mum okay?”

Ben nodded. “She’s on the warpath,” he murmured. “She was already pushing for the contract to be declared voidable due to my state of mind when I signed it, not to mention the fraud charges and the lawsuits for compensation, lost wages, embezzlement, misrepresentation, you name it. Now he’s got extortion and threats on top of it.” He sighed. “It might still take awhile. Snoke has good lawyers, too. But it’ll be okay.” 

Rey nodded, and Ben frowned, cupping her face in his hands and brushing her tears away with his thumbs. “Hey. It’s okay,” he murmured. “I promise nothing’s going to happen to you. I don’t fucking care what he does. I’d take a bullet for you, Rey, you know that.”

 _“No.”_ It was choked, and Rey reached up and gripped his wrists tightly, staring at him with reddened eyes. “No, I don’t want that.” 

Ben blinked at her, face falling. “You don’t want—” 

“Do you remember what I told you? About Matt dying?” she said, meeting his gaze without flinching. “I think I understand where you’re coming from with it, now. You think that as long as Kira lives, he’d be happy with that, right? That’s how she’d know he loves her more than anything, that he’d die for her?” 

“Rey…” He started, but she tugged on his wrists and pulled him closer to her, her grasp bruising-tight. 

“That’s not what love is,” Rey insisted, eyes blazing. “That’s a goddamn hero complex. Matt gets the easy out. _You_ get the easy out. Kira and I have to live knowing that you fucking _died_ for us, and in the end, we’re both alone.”

“Rey, he’s not actually going to—”

 _“Shut up.”_ She was crying openly now, and Ben looked at her helplessly. “You know,” she said, biting back a sob, “Matt walked into the emperor’s lair, even though he was terrified, because he knew it meant there was a chance Kira would be safe if he did. Because he thought she wanted him to be a hero. He thought that was how he needed to show that he loved her. But the whole time? She just wanted him to _choose_ her. She wanted him to look at all the paths laid out in front of him, and for fucking _once,_ to come with her. To stand by her, no matter what happened, even if they didn’t know what was coming next. They’d face it together.” 

Rey’s hand was shaking as she laid it against Ben’s cheek, and her heart shone in her eyes. “You chose me,” she managed, voice breaking. “This time, Snoke called, and you chose me instead.” 

She burst into sobs as Ben gathered her up in his arms, holding her to him tightly. “I love you so much,” he said, his voice rough, and Rey could feel his chest heaving beneath her cheek. “Rey, I’m so fucking sorry…”

 _I know,_ she thought, but she was crying too hard to get the words out and just let herself be held, let them have this moment of grief, of penitence, of peace. 

Rey wasn’t sure how much time had passed as she finally pulled back from Ben’s embrace. She couldn’t imagine how awful she looked — she was an ugly crier, her face turning red and splotchy, nose running everywhere, and she sniffed loudly and reached for the tissues she kept at her bedside, tossing the box to Ben. 

“We’ve got to,” she blew her nose loudly, “stop making each other cry so much.” 

“Maybe Maz has a worksheet for that,” Ben observed, giving her a weak smile as he wiped at his eyes. 

Rey managed a weak, hiccuping laugh at that. “Fuck, you already probably have the master copy in one of your books.” 

“Christ,” Ben said, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes and falling back on the bed. “What a day. At least we survived it together.”

Rey stared at him, her brow furrowing. “…hey,” she said slowly, crumpling the tissue in her hand, an idea beginning to form in her mind.

Ben rose up on his elbows, looking at her with a question in his eyes.

Rey held up a hand, her own eyes darting back and forth, slowly brightening, and when she turned back to him, it was with a growing smile even through her lingering tears.

“I know,” she breathed. “Ben. I know how it ends.”

*****

“I hope you don’t mind that I’m too tired to do anything but sleep,” Ben murmured against the back of Rey’s neck, curling around her in bed and stroking the soft skin of her belly. 

“Are you kidding?” Rey asked, squirming happily in his arms as he hit a particularly ticklish spot. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed this. Even with you being a furnace.”

“Me too.” He kissed the back of her neck. “Even with your cold feet and the fact that you steal half the blankets.” 

“Buy bigger blankets if you want more coverage, you giant.”

“So your stolen blanket burrito can get even bigger? Nice try.” Rey yelped as he gave her derriere a light pinch, and she kicked him in the shin. 

They settled into a sleepy quiet as they spooned together, and Rey closed her eyes, rested her hands over Ben’s. 

“Hey,” he murmured. 

“Hm.”

He was hesitating, and she stroked his fingers, waiting. 

“What he said,” Ben started, twining their fingers together. “About… sending you messages.”

Rey sighed, half-turning in his arms to face him. “I didn’t know,” she said quietly. “I got a lot of messages about your book from MattKiras over the last year and a half. A million messages cheering me on. Any of them could have been from him.”

“But if he was behind all of it, then it’s not your fault,” Ben insisted. “He was manipulating you, the same way he was with me. It means you’re not…”

Rey shook her head, squeezing his hand. “I wanted to hate you,” she murmured. “After not feeling anything for so long, feeling that anger, and being lauded for it…” She was quiet, holding their clasped hands to her chest. “He may have helped push me over the edge,” she said, “but the foundation was already there. For both of us. It’s too easy to say it was all just because of him. It wasn’t. It was already in us.” 

Ben said nothing, but after a moment, he nodded, wrapping his arm tighter around Rey’s shoulders. “We’ll do better,” he said quietly. 

They would, Rey thought, already drowsing in Ben’s arms, feeling him nuzzle the top of her head. 

They had all the time in the world.

*****

> **_roseofthegalaxy:_ ** _REY OMG_
> 
> **_roseofthegalaxy:_ ** _HAVE YOU SEEN CHAPTER 24????_
> 
> **_roseofthegalaxy:_ ** _omg im dying_
> 
> **_roseofthegalaxy:_ ** _PLEASE tell me you’ve talked to KyloRen and he told you the ending bc if it’s not a HEA i am not going to survive -sob-_

KyloRen was, at that moment, wiping his mouth off on Rey’s sheets, looking entirely too self-satisfied as he knelt between her shaking thighs and pressed a kiss to the soft skin at the inside of her knee.

“I hate you,” she groused, typing at her phone one-handed. 

“You love me,” he said easily, climbing back into bed with her. “What’s up?”

“You broke the MattKiras with Chapter 24,” Rey said frankly, finishing typing before pushing Ben back to the bed with a mischievous smile. “I told Rose that I was personally torturing KyloRen for more information about Chapter 25 and that there _would_ be a happy ending, if I had anything to say about it.”

“Torturing?” He raised an eyebrow at her, making a strangled noise in his throat as she pulled him from his boxers and ducked her head. “Best interrogator ever,” he sighed, tangling his fingers in her hair. 

*****

> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i am proud to report that KyloRen broke under torture >:) _
> 
> **_roseofthegalaxy:_ ** _omg what did he say???_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _“you are the fucking best sweetheart i love you”_
> 
> **_roseofthegalaxy:_ ** _???????_
> 
> **_roseofthegalaxy:_ ** _is that a hint for the next chapter?? a line or something??_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _no that was for me_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _he’s my boyfriend rose_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _oh my god can i actually say that now?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _he says yes_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _oh fuck he’s crying_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _So is she. Don’t let her lie to you._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _Also, hi, Rose._
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _LET GO OF MY PHONE YOU ASSHOL E_
> 
> **_roseofthegalaxy:_ ** _OMFG_
> 
> **_roseofthegalaxy:_ ** _ARE YOU TWO REALLY_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _it’s a looooong story_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _like you think ‘across the stars’ is long??_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _this is like three times that_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _and_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _like_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _half as believable_
> 
> **_roseofthegalaxy:_ ** _!!! icant wait to hear it but DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS IN CHAPTER 25?!?!?_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _yes :)_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _it’s good_
> 
> **_roseofthegalaxy:_ ** _that’s all I need to know omg <333 _
> 
> **_roseofthegalaxy:_ ** _and im so happy for u!!!!_
> 
> **_roseofthegalaxy:_ ** _(i gotta ask)_
> 
> **_roseofthegalaxy:_ ** _(and i am so sorry if this is too personal)_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _the sex stuff??_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _it’s true_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _ALL of it_
> 
> **_roseofthegalaxy:_ ** _……damn girl_
> 
> **_roseofthegalaxy:_ ** _are you okay?? XD_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _you know_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i am_
> 
> **_thereyoflight:_ ** _i really, really am <3 _

*****

**_Thu, Feb 21, 6:35 PM (5 minutes ago)_ **

_[AO3] KyloRen posted a new chapter of_ ** _Across the Stars_** _(187,248 words):_

 ** _Chapter 25_** _(7410 words)_

_by KyloRen_

**_Chapters:_ ** _25/25_

 **_Fandom:_ ** _Lost Galaxy (TV)_

 **_Rating:_ ** _Explicit_

 **_Warnings:_ ** _Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death_

 **_Relationships:_ ** _Matthias Logan/Kira_

 **_Characters:_ ** _Kira, Matthias Logan, Sam, Nines, Solan/The Emperor, Aleyna of Stormhold_

 **_Summary:_ ** _For Rey. For everyone trying to find their way home._

*****

_Kira’s head throbbed, and her eyes were filled with blood._

_The Emperor was dead, disintegrated by the sheer force of Matt and Kira’s combined strength as they had crossed swords and sent a wave of energy crashing over him. The temple had crumbled around them in a storm of violent winds, ash and splintered obsidian whipping around them. Kira had barely had time to throw herself over Matt, stroke her hands over his flesh in a desperate search for a pulse, before it had collapsed, Solan’s screams still echoing around them._

_In the middle of the storm, Kira had hazarded a glance up even as she curled herself protectively around Matt._

_There, at the edge of the abyss, standing above the emperor, she could have sworn she saw a young woman with dark hair, with Matt’s eyes, laser sword in hand, staring down in cold judgment._

_When her eyes met Kira’s, she had smiled, a faint, ghostly thing, and nodded, before she vanished._

_“Hey,” Kira managed, groping blindly, holding Matt’s hand in her own._

_He coughed, twining their fingers together. “Hey,” he said weakly. “You’re still alive?”_

_“Stubborn,” Kira said, and she could feel the copper-salt taste of blood on her tongue. “Both of us.” She groaned as she rolled onto her side, laying her head against Matt’s chest and staring at the sky above, star-spangled and beautiful, a still night in the sweep of chaos around them._

_One by one, the stars were winking into darkness, and something beckoned from beyond them._

_“If it’s with you,” Matt managed, breathing hard, and he weakly pulled his arm around her._

_Kira nodded. “It’s okay,” she said, eyes fluttering shut, laying her wrist, her soulmate mark against his. “It’s okay if it’s you.”_

_She could feel Matt’s heartbeat in the thick red band against his wrist, and it echoed across the stars to her own, deep in her blood, in her heart._

_Kira waited, as the mark seemed to burn against her flesh, as Matt’s heartbeat grew stronger, as something stitched and mended. Her eyes flew open, and she gasped even as Matt held her fast, her eyes clearing and meeting his._

_He was shaking, staring past her. “I feel it,” he managed. “Kira, I feel it, too.”_

_The burning intensified, and Kira bit back a scream as her broken ribs slowly knit back together, her shoulders heaving, eyes wide as Matt’s dislocated shoulder moved back into place with a sickening crunch._

_“Matt,” she sobbed, clutching at his fingers, and he grasped the back of her neck with his free hand and pulled her into a fierce kiss._

_The burning had subsided into something that felt like light, radiating outward from her soulmate mark, thrumming through her blood. She could hear Matt’s heartbeat beside her own, a steady counterbeat, growing stronger, louder…_

_Kira broke the kiss but kept her face close to Matt’s, staring at him in wonder. “Together,” she whispered._

_He nodded, resting his forehead against hers._

_“Together,” he said._

_*****_

_Hi, everyone. KyloRen here._

_Well. It’s finished._

_I can’t believe it, either. It’s been, what, six months? And how many words? I appreciate all of you coming along for the ride._

_Something exciting you may have noticed on the blog over the last few days is the absolutely gorgeous illustrations for “Across the Stars”. These are just a few teasers to get you started — I’m in the process of working with the artist to produce a fully-illustrated version of the story, set to coincide with the release of Lost Galaxy’s final season in September._

_She’s a new MattKira shipper and is a bit gun-shy about the whole thing, not to mention posting her art online, so please give her a follow at @seekingreydemption here and on Twitter (she’s trying to get me involved with that. I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing here, let alone on a second form of social media. We’ll see what happens)._

_Her story is… complicated. What I’d ask is that you consider giving her a second chance, just like Kira did for Matt. And like she did for me, in the end._

_I love her a lot._

_That’s probably sappy, huh._

_(She says yes but that it’s okay so we’re going to go with it.)_

_Thank you all again. You can’t begin to imagine what this fic has given me. I can only hope it’s given something to all of you as well._

_KyloRen_

_*****_

_Hey guys, long time no talk!! thereyoflight here <3 _

_i guess you’re all probably wondering how Project Infiltrate MattKira is going_

_answer: pretty great actually?? fuck so much has happened since i started reading that fic, i can’t even tell you_

_i started going to therapy again. that’s a big get, i highly recommend it for all of you (and i mean SUPER. FUCKING. HIGHLY recommend)_

_my best friend’s boyfriend and i are almost starting to get along!! he’s still insufferable but we can be in the same room together now and as soon as i get him to stop talking during movies we are fast-tracking to straight-up Tolerating status_

_and i have a new friend, too! and she lives just a few hours away!! we’re going to try to have a meetup this summer when the weather doesn’t suck so hard_

_OH, i got a HUGE raise at work. i’m actually not sure my boss knows about that one yet. but he will soon!!! :)_

_what else……_

_oh yeah._

_I fucked KyloRen._

_Like_

_SO MANY times_

_i mean you’ve probably heard that the sex scenes in “across the stars” are a++? Can confirm, he’s pretty awesome and he’s mine, can you believe it?_

_(he says questionable to the first part and absolutely 100% to the second. it’s yes to both, believe me, his dick is awesome)_

_see, i loved him for so long, and i almost forgot that because of all of this bullshit. and he FUCKING WROTE “across the stars”_

_and i’m telling you, he’s a fucking awesome writer, you should all really give it a shot_

_because, and i don’t know if any of you have realised this, but holy shit does being an anti suck balls_

_no like wow is this whole thing awful and toxic and just fucking MISERABLE_

_so i guess infiltrating worked bc i’m going to go hang out with the MattKiras now, because even when theyre cringey af, they’re having fun with this whole thing and making shit instead of just making fun of people_

_Mattkiras, if you’re reading this…… i am so fucking sorry. sincerely. I know that’s not enough, but i am going to try my fucking hardest from here on out. Please follow my new art blog at seekingreydemption, where KyloRen and I are working on a fan-fucking-tastic illustrated version of “Across the Stars”_

_and my fellow antis…… seriously_

_this life is so much better_

_There’s so much to love and so much healing_

_stop fighting what you hate for once, and start trying to save what you love_

_i’m so fucking lucky that i got a second chance to_

~~_thereyoflight_ ~~ _seekingreydemption xoxo_

_p.s._

_mattkira is canon <3 _

*****

Rey bit her lip, resting her hands on Ben’s thighs from her place seated between them, her back to his chest. “Well?” she asked, reaching up to ruffle his hair as he rested his chin on her shoulder. 

“The postscript makes it,” Ben said, kissing her cheek. “I’m so fucking proud of you, sweetheart.” 

“You too.” She grinned as his arms came around her, holding her close. “How’s the feedback been?” 

“Amazing. Your art is killing it. I’ve already had at least a dozen people asking if you take commissions.”

“I’d need a tablet for that, probably.” 

Ben hesitated, and Rey leaned back to narrow her eyes at him. “Ben…”

“I can still return it, probably…” he began. 

_“Ben!”_

There was a glint of mischief in his eyes, utterly unrepentant as he hoisted her up in his arms and carried her towards the bedroom. 

In the living room, the TV continued to play an episode of _Lost Galaxy,_ and Matt and Kira stared at each other, the future stretching out unknown before them. 

For now, though…

Rey was pretty sure it was going to be a good one.


	13. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe it's over. I can't believe I wrote this thing in four weeks. I can't believe so many of you READ it. 
> 
> From the bottom of my heart, thank you all so much for coming along with me for this crazy ride.
> 
> [EDIT: Yes, I know, 2020 played out very differently than is depicted in this fic. Pretend they live in a world where COVID-19 didn't happen and happy endings are allowed to exist.]

**_These are the things Rey always wanted to remember._ **

**_These are the things she would never forget._ **

*****

**_March 18, 2020_ **

*****

Rey stared at Ben incredulously, holding a small dry-erase board on her lap as Ben narrowed his eyes in concentration and drew on his own. 

“Alright, Ben,” Maz said. “We’ve already seen Rey’s depiction of you. Can we see your depiction of Rey?”

“It’s not done,” Ben said, slamming his marker down in frustration. “I can’t get the eyes right.” 

“This isn’t an exercise in artistic ability, Ben,” Maz said for the thousandth time. “It’s an activity of expression.” 

Ben frowned before slowly flipping over his board. 

Rey’s Ben was carefully drawn in blue marker, his long profile, his expressive eyes, the softness of his mouth all captured in deft strokes.

Ben’s Rey was the most lovingly rendered stick figure the world had ever seen.

*****

**_April 10, 2020_ **

**_*****_ **

“Happy birthday, Rey.” Rey grinned as Leia pulled her into a tight bear hug and pressed a smacking kiss to her cheek. “Ben!” she yelled to the kitchen. “Get that fucking cake in here!”

“Is she always like this?” Finn asked, _sotto voce,_ leaning across the table and reaching up to push his party hat out of his eyes. 

“Yes, and it’s amazing.” Rey squeezed Leia back as Ben carefully balanced the cake — big enough to feed a small and particularly sugar-happy nation — laden with lit candles in his arms. 

“All these candles,” he said, raising his eyebrows at her and giving her a rakish grin. “How old are you now? Forty?”

“Watch you don’t trip without your cane, _grandpa,”_ Rey said sardonically, kissing him on the cheek and blowing out the candles in one long breath. 

(Later, when she opened her presents, Ben had apparently coordinated everyone into purchasing high-end art supplies. Leia, well-meaning as anything, had gotten her a tablet twice as expensive as the one Ben had bought her.) 

(Ben, for his part, had held her in his lap, dutifully collecting discarded wrapping paper and holding her hand as she opened her gifts.)

(He gave her his present much later.)

*****

**_May 4, 2020_ **

*****

Ben tossed a small box at Rey one-handed as he walked into the apartment, hanging his jacket up on the hook. It had been unseasonably cold of late, and he had spent the better part of the week grumbling and curling around her in bed, particularly in the mornings, insisting that he needed to steal her body heat. 

(He was still a fucking furnace, and Rey wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t just trying to get her to sleep naked. Not that that wasn’t _really_ fun.)

“What’s this for?” Rey asked, setting aside her tablet and her half-finished sketch of a scene from Chapter Eleven. 

“Happy Anniversary,” Ben said matter-of-factly, shooting her a grin and pressing a sloppy kiss to her temple as he flopped down next to her on the couch. 

Rey stared at him. “Are we still observing that as our anniversary?” 

“Just open it.”

Rey frowned, tugging the lid off the box. “Christ, Ben, I feel awful, I didn’t get you…”

She dropped the lid, looking up and giving him a flat, dead stare. 

The asshole was still grinning at her.

“You can do a million things with potatoes,” Ben reminded her. 

(He probably hadn’t considered “chase your boyfriend around the apartment trying to throw one at him until you both collapsed into hysterics and just ended up baking the damn thing”.)

*****

**_July 6, 2020_ **

*****

“Mm… no.” Finn scratched his chin thoughtfully. “I think I liked it against the far wall better.”

Ben stared up at him with pure hate in his eyes, breathing hard and gripping the back of the couch. “I have moved it against the far wall _three times,”_ he ground out. 

“Maybe the fourth time’s the charm,” Finn said a touch too innocently. He took a sip of the glass of lemonade in his hand as Ben started cursing and pushing the couch again. 

Rey glanced up from drying dishes with Poe in the kitchen and ducked her head to hide her smile. 

“I think they’re getting along better, don’t you?” Poe observed, handing her a dripping wet serving spoon. 

“Much,” Rey said, smile widening. “You two had better plan on staying in this place for awhile, though. He’s going to figure it out sooner or later.” 

“…no, I think you were right, it’s better in the middle. Move it back.”

_“Fucking. Hell.”_

*****

**_August 14, 2020_ **

*****

“Remind me to re-do that author photo at some point,” Ben observed, staring up at his own visage ten feet high. 

“It’s not a bad photo, per se,” Ker said, shrugging. “You definitely look happier now, though.” 

He gave her a faint smile, glancing back to the convention floor. “Do you think anyone’s even going to show up for a book signing? It’s two years old at this point.”

Ker grinned. “With the MattKiras out in force? No doubt.” She hesitated. “Speaking of which…”

Ben sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. “I know you got tipped off about ‘Across the Stars’. It was all over Tumblr a few months ago that I was the author. They doxxed my girlfriend, too.” 

Ker nodded. “Yeah, we all heard about the whole situation with Snoke. Has he been indicted yet?”

“He’s dragging it out, but it’s just a matter of time.” Ben chewed on his lower lip. “Look, I know it’s awkward, and it’s not the best look for me, professionally.”

“Not so much,” Ker agreed. “But we’ve got the next phase of publishing coming up next year after the last season, and _Shadow and Fate_ is still our best-selling novel in the _Lost Galaxy_ imprint. Half the story group is pretty against it, but depending on how things go with the trial, there might be enough goodwill to bring you back in, even just for some consulting. Who’s representing you right now?”

He laughed at that, and it was genuine, his eyes infinitely softer than the harsh, intense look of the Ben Solo on the author profile standees. “Organa Publishing,” he said meaningfully. “Pretty sure I can put you in touch with one of the biggest names there. If she feels like taking my calls that day.” 

Ker shook his hand, grinning at him. “Tell her I said hi the next time she does. Interning for that woman was the best thing that ever happened to me.” 

Before Ben knew it, it was 2:30, and his eyes widened as he took in the winding line of convention attendees waiting for him. A wild cheer rose up with a round of applause as he waved awkwardly to the crowd and took his seat next to a stack of novels. 

He’d gone through two Sharpies and was staring bleary-eyed at the book in front of him when the last autograph recipient, a shapely Kira cosplayer detailed down to the inch, leaned across the table. “Hey, handsome,” she said in a low, sultry voice, setting her laser sword on the signing table. “Want to get out of here once you’re done? I know a place.”

“Sorry,” Ben said flatly, not looking up, “but I’d have a very pissed off koala of a girlfriend biting my ankles the minute I got home.”

“She sounds awesome and I bet you’re beyond lucky to have her.” 

“You have no idea. Thanks for—” He raised an eyebrow, sighing and crossing his arms over his chest as he finally looked at the cosplayer. 

She was smirking at him, gazing at him expectantly. 

“What’s your name?” Ben asked, leaning back in his chair and giving her a slow smile. 

“Isobel,” she said, leaning across the table. 

“Kylo,” he said, eyes bright. “I always wanted to meet you. Want to fuck in a storage closet before my girlfriend finds us?” 

The cosplayer laughed, pulling him into a kiss, ignoring the gasps of the attendees behind her. “Pissed off koala,” she groused, but she was smiling. “Asshole.”

“Do I have to come as Matt next year? I’ve always wanted to grow a goatee.” 

“Don’t you fucking _dare,_ Ben Solo.” 

“I’ll buy a koala suit. You can carry me around on your back.”

Rey rolled her eyes and drew the red wig off along with the wig cap, ruffling out her own soft brown hair and coming around the back of the table, resting her chin on his shoulder. “How’d you do?” she asked, wrapping her arms around his waist. “I heard lots of fangirling.” 

“I talked to Ker,” he said. “There are some rumours.”

Rey’s eyes widened. “That Snoke didn’t totally torpedo you?”

“I told you, it was okay if he did.”

“But if he didn’t…” she said meaningfully. 

Ben rose, drawing her into a tight hug. “We’ll cross the bridge when we come to it.” He ducked his head. “Now, if you don’t mind,” he said in a low voice, “I have been stuck signing autographs and making small talk for the last two hours, and I would really like to go back to our hotel room and fuck you into the mattress, if it’s all the same to you.”

Rey grinned up at him, her eyes darkening. “With the outfit or without?”

“What the hell, surprise me.”

*****

**_September 5, 2020_ **

*****

_Hi, everyone. KyloRen here. Thank you all for the incredible feedback on the illustrated edition of “Across the Stars” — seekingreydemption and roseofthegalaxy have logged so many hours making it into something beautiful, and I’m glad to hear that so many of you are enjoying it._

_I know I’ve been back to being more the silent type, but with LG’s final season debuting on Tuesday, I’ll try to be more active on social media (seekingreydemption is scoffing in the background at that, I would like to note). There are some interesting things potentially in the works, and I hope I’ll be able to tell you about them, hopefully someday soon._

*****

**_September 8, 2020_ **

*****

“So Kira is the redhead?” Leia asked, attempting to look around Chewie’s significant bulk to see the TV.

Rey nodded, covering her yawn with her hand. “Yep. She and Matt are the bonded soulmates. Who had better be getting a happy ending here, too,” she said, staring pointedly at Ben as the opening credits began and he sat next to her on the couch, slinging an arm over her shoulders. 

He raised an eyebrow at her. “I told you, everything I’ve heard out of the story group says yes, but it’s hard to tell this far out. Did you not sleep again last night?”

“Classes are hard,” she sighed, leaning against his shoulder and letting him card his fingers through her hair. “I didn’t know I could get tired of drawing so fast.” 

“Only four more years and you’re done,” Ben observed, offering her a small smile as she tilted her head back and glared at him. 

“I’m going to catch up to your fancy damn MFA one of these days, college boy.” She grinned as Ben leaned down to nip at her neck, and together they settled in to watch the beginning of the final season.

*****

**_December 25, 2020_ **

*****

Near midnight, the bedroom TV on low, Rey drowsed in Ben’s arms, wrapped up in an ultra-thick duvet on the ornately-carved sleigh bed he’d bought them for Christmas. 

The rest of the condo was still a maze of unpacked boxes, they’d had to settle for the tiny three-foot prelit tree Finn and Poe had sent over, and they’d ordered takeaway for the last four days as Ben argued with the super over a crack in the granite countertops. 

“Good Christmas?” he murmured, kissing her temple, one hand stroking idly at her bare breast. 

Rey smiled against his chest, closing her eyes and cuddling closer. “The best,” she sighed.

*****

**_December 31, 2020_ **

*****

It was a cold, grey afternoon, rain and sleet pelting down, and Rey raised the hood on her Anorak jacket as she made her way across the field. She could feel Ben’s gaze on her back, watching her with wary eyes from beside the Falcon. 

“Do you want me to go with you?” he’d asked, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as they’d pulled up. 

She shook her head. “I won’t be long,” she said, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek.

Now, she unfolded the map in her pocket as she passed through the weathered iron gate, looking past the tidy rows of headstones for…

There, at the top of the hill. 

“It’s a mass grave,” the county liaison had told her, not unkindly, as she’d provided the map. “We hold them for three years, and if we can’t find their next of kin, they’re eventually cremated and interred.”

“I was in the foster system,” Rey had said softly. “They could have found me.”

The woman had given her a sympathetic smile. “Sometimes they just fall through the cracks, honey.”

Just like she had. Rey ducked her head, slowing as she came to the edge of the grave, long grown over with dark grass and moss, marked simply with the year: 2012.

There were over 1500 urns buried deep in the earth here. 

She was only interested in two. 

“Hi, mum,” she said softly. “Dad.” 

She shoved her hands in her pockets, awkwardly shifting her weight on the balls of her feet. “I don’t even know if you remember me,” she said, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath as she felt anger rise up hot in her chest. “I don’t know if you remembered much of anything by the end.” 

Rey was quiet for a long moment, watching raindrops and sleet spatter on the grass in front of her. “I’ve been talking about you a lot in therapy,” she said finally. “This was Maz’s idea, once we found out where you were. That I should come and talk to you. Get a few things out.” 

She exhaled slowly. “I’m doing okay,” she said. “Actually, I’m doing better than okay. It was rough for awhile. I barely scraped by, and I…” She worried her lip between her teeth. “I did a lot of things I’m not proud of.” 

She smiled humourlessly at the grave. “Guess you can relate to that one, huh.” 

Rey’s breathing deepened, her shoulders heaving, hands clenching and unclenching into fists inside her pockets. “But I have so much now,” she managed, ignoring the tears pushing at the corners of her eyes. “I’m in art school, finally. I bet you didn’t even know I could draw. Well, I can, and I’m fucking good at it. I have friends and a place to live and I survived, my whole life, without you.” 

She exhaled, her breath frosting in the air in front of her. “And I stopped just surviving,” she said, setting her jaw and standing up straighter. “I started living.” 

She turned back to stare at the sloping green of the cemetery, to the white Firebird parked just outside its gates, where a tall figure in a dark jacket stood, heedless of the cold, the rain, watching her patiently.

Rey raised one hand and pointed towards him as she whirled back to the grave. “You see him?” she managed, gritting her teeth. “That’s Ben, and he loves me more than anything you’ve ever seen. More than you could fucking imagine. And I’m going to marry him, and we’re going to have the fattest, happiest babies ever, and we’re _never_ going to leave them. Never. And we’ll love them so. Fucking. _Much.”_

She took a few deep, calming breaths, closing her eyes for the space of a heartbeat, and when she opened them, they were dry. “It’s a shame that you didn’t stick around to see that,” she said, her voice even. “But we’ll make up for it, me and him. We always have.” 

Rey turned on her heel and started back down the hill, meeting Ben’s eyes and wordlessly stepping into his arms as he wrapped them around her when she reached him. 

“You okay?” he murmured against her hair. 

She nodded, closing her eyes and curling into his embrace. “Let’s go home,” she said softly. 

*****

**_April 28, 2021_**

*****

Snoke had made the trial as difficult as he could, his lawyers drawing it out with seemingly endless postponements and more than a few unsavoury characters “coincidentally” hanging around Rey and Ben’s condo, going through their trash, talking to their neighbours in a desperate attempt to find something to impugn their moral character.

(One of their neighbours, a very nice old lady named Mrs. Astor, had promised them they were lovely tenants, but she _had_ given them a mischievous smile before complimenting them on the vigour of their lovemaking. “Oh, I don’t hear it often, dear,” she’d said, patting Ben’s arm as he flushed crimson and couldn’t quite look at her. “But you’re just like my George and me back in the day! Ah, youth.”)

(He’d gotten back at Rey for her beaming grin by making sure that the sounds Mrs. Astor heard that night were _very_ distinctly Rey’s alone.)

In the end, there was nothing to be found against Ben or Rey, and a mountain of evidence against Snoke. 

“Guilty on all charges,” Finn noted at Rey’s shoulder as she clutched Ben’s hand in the gallery at the sentencing. “What’s that carry, sentence-wise?”

“With my mother’s lawyers, and everything they dug up about just how many writers he’s fucked over?” Ben said quietly, shaking his head. “Enough that he’s probably not going to see the outside of a federal prison again unless it’s in a coffin. He’s already 81.” 

“You’re probably getting some nice restitution from his estate, too.” 

Rey squeezed Ben’s hand. “That’s just the icing on the cake,” she said. “There was no way that contract was going to hold up with Ben’s mental state back then. It’s knowing that he can never do this again, to anyone, that makes it worth it.” 

They rose as the judge entered the courtroom, followed shortly by Snoke and his lawyers. His distinct air of arrogance hadn’t faded even as the verdict had been declared, and he gave Ben a soft smile before turning to face the judge.

Rey’s jaw was tight, and she stroked one hand through Ben’s hair as he rested his head on her shoulder, watching as their pre-recorded victim impact statements were played. 

In the end, it was Snoke’s total lack of remorse that did him in: twenty years, and seven figures designated for restitution. 

His arrogant smile finally faded as he was led out of the courtroom, his eyes settling on Rey. “Well,” he observed, and his eyes were cold as ice, “I suppose you won, Rey Solana. Congratulations.” 

The words were fairly spit at her, and Rey met his gaze evenly, waiting. 

When those cold eyes passed over the sapphire on her left hand and widened, staring at her in defeat, she raised an eyebrow and smiled at him. 

“It’s Rey Solo,” she said. 

She flinched at the feeling of a hand on her back, before leaning back against Ben’s broad chest and taking his hand in hers, running her thumb over his wedding band. 

“He looks so much smaller than I remember,” he murmured, kissing her temple and watching as he was led off in handcuffs.

“He always was,” Rey observed. 

*****

**_May 4, 2021_**

*****

“I’m not ready!” 

“Put your head between your knees if you’re hyperventilating,” Ben called from the kitchen, and she heard the microwave beep twice.

“I’m not hyperventilating!” she yelled back. “Is that extra butter?”

“It’s extra something,” she heard her husband grumble. The air smelled of popcorn as he settled onto the couch next to her, setting the bowl on the coffee table in front of them and hauling her into his arms. 

Rey stared at the digital clock on the cable box and wrung her hands together. “Two minutes. _Fuck.”_

“Rey,” Ben said in mild exasperation, “just watch. It’ll be fine.” 

“It’s the _last episode,_ Ben,” she said, a touch panicked, turning in his arms to gaze up at him. “The last episode ever.”

“Right.” He gave her a quick kiss on the forehead. “And Matt and Kira are going to get their happy ending.”

“They fucking damn well better,” Rey muttered, snuggling close to him and glaring at him as she felt him smother a laugh against her temple. 

“I’ll fix it if they don’t,” he promised. “Or, you know, even if they do. One of the novels they have me contracted for takes place after the end of the show. I’m sure they’ll let me work some MattKira in if I tell them my wife is threatening my life otherwise.”

“The OTP is serious business,” Rey observed, shoving a handful of popcorn into her mouth. 

He was right, of course, and Rey would be annoyed about that if it didn’t mean the series did indeed end with Kira in Matt’s arms. They’d fought together, they’d shared a passionate kiss and expressed their love. 

They were both alive, and they were together. 

The final shot of _Lost Galaxy_ was Matt and Kira sharing a lingering look, then a close-up of their clasped hands as they watched the sunset together, as the war ended and the galaxy took its first faltering steps towards peace. 

Rey blinked away tears as the end credits rolled, and Ben rubbed her shoulder tenderly. “See?” he murmured. “I told you it would be okay.”

“They told you, didn’t they.” 

He gave her a soft smile as she sat up in his lap, twining her arms around his neck. “Maybe,” he said, cagey. “Do you want to know what happens next?” 

“Um, _yes.”_

“Guess you’ll have to wait for the next book, then.”

 _“Ben!”_ Rey glared at him, but she was laughing as he pressed her back into the couch and kissed her, long and slow. 

“Glad they got their happy ending after all?” Ben murmured, running his thumb over the notches of her spine.

Rey rested her forehead against his, taking his hand in hers and squeezing.

“I’m glad we both did,” she said, leaning up to kiss him again.

*****

the end.


End file.
